y 


OAK  ST.  HDSF 


Abridged  Debaters'  Handbook  Series 


SELECTED  ARTICLES 


ON 


Restriction  of  Immigration 


COMPILED  BY 
EDITH  M.  PHELPS 


THE  H.  W.  WILSON  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK 

1920 


/ 


1 


> 


ft 

i 


':        .1 

J 

%  EXPLANATORY  NOTE 

^  With  the  passage  of  the  Burnett-Dillingham  bill  in  Februar>' 
1917,  over  President  Wilson's  second  veto,  there  came  an  end  to 
the  long  struggle,  waged  since  1896,  to  incorporate  the  literacy 
test  into  our  immigration  laws.  But  this  did  not  prevent  de- 
mands for  further  restriction  of  immigration,  as  can  be  shown 
by  the  number  of  bills  introduced  into  Congress  since  that  date. 
Conditions  resulting  from  the  war  and  the  uncertainty  as  to 
future  immigration  have  made  the  question  of  more  importance 
than  ever.  Many  feel  that  the  present  temporary  lull  in  immi- 
gration is  the  time  to  shape  our  course  for  the  future. 

The  question  of  prohibiting  immigration  entirely  until  condi- 
tions approach  a  normal  peace-time  basis,  is  of  very  recent  origin. 

•  The  war  has  made  evident  that  we  have  admitted  to  this  country 
a  large  number  of  people  who,  for  various  reasons,  have  not 
become  assimilated,  and  whose  present  situation  is  a  menace  to 
our  political,  social  and  economic  well-being.  Some  feel  that 
the  remedy  lies  in  further  restriction  of  immigration;  others, 
rather  in  better  assimilation  and  distribution  of  the  immigrants. 
The  varying  opinions  are  set  forth  in  the  following  pages. 

This  Handbook  conforms  to  the  general  plan  of  the  Debat- 
ers' Handbook  Series  in  that  it  contains  briefs  for  both  sides  of 
the  question,  a  selected  bibliography,  a  discussion  of  the  history 
and  present  status  of  the  immigration  problem,  and  reprints  of 
articles  both  for  and  against  the  proposal  to  prohibit  immigra- 
tion for  a  term  of  jears.  Since  this  phase  of  the  subject  is  new, 
the  bibliography  is  meagre,  but  additional  arguments  can  be 
found  in  the  older  literature  listed  in  the  various  bibliographies 
mentioned. 

Edith  M.  Phelps. 
February  3,  1920. 


V    ^*>56Q 


f 


i:(; 


BRIEF 


Resolvep,     That   Congress   should   prohibit  immigration   into 
the  United  States  for  four  years. 

Introduction 

I.  It  is  generally  admitted  that  there  is  need  of  greater  care  in 

admitting  and  assimilating  the  foreign-born  who  come  to 
our  shores. 

II.  As  part  of  a  program  for  better  assimilation,  it  is  urged  that 

further   immigration   to   the   United    States   be   prohibited 
for  four  years. 

III.  The  issues  for  debate  are 

A.  Is  this  legislation  necessar>'? 

B.  Is  it  advisable  for  other  reasons? 

C.  Does  it  have  the  support  of  public  opinion? 

Affirmative 

I.       It  is  necessary  that  immigration  into  the  United  States  be 
prohibited  for  four  3'^ears. 

A.  There  are  alread}'  in  this  countn,-  large  numbers  of 
aliens  who  have  not  been  assimilated. 

1.  They  have  come  much   faster  than  the\-  could  be 
cared  for. 

2.  A    large    proportion    of    them    have    come     from 

countries  with  speech,  laws  and  customs  entirely 
dissimilar  to  our  own. 

3.  Many  of  them  are  still  unfamiliar  with  our  lan- 
guage and  laws. 

B.  As  soon  as  ocean  transportation  is  fully  re-established, 
there  will  be  more  immigrants  than  ever  before. 


1.  Many  will  come  from  war-ruined  countries  to 
better  their  social  and  economic  condition. 

2.  The  decrease  in  immigration  during  the  war  and 
at  present  is  purely  temporary. 

3.  Many  aliens  now  returning  to  Europe  will  come 
back  bringing  their  families  and  friends  with 
them. 

C.  This  legislation  is  needed  for  economic  reasons. 

1.  The  low-skilled  occupations  into  which  most  immi- 

grants enter  are  considerably  overstocked. 

2.  With  the  return  of  our  men  from  Europe  and  the 
closing  of  many  war  industries  there  is  increasinia, 

unemployrrient. 

3.  Standards  of  living  and  wages  cannot  be  main- 
tained in  competition  with  immigrant-recruited  re- 
serves of  unemployment. 

D.  This   legislation   is   necessary   to   preserve   our  ideals 
and  institutions. 

1.  Democrac}-   can   only   exist   with    the   maintenance 

of  a  certain  standard  of  living. 

2.  Our   government   is   threatened   by   those   who   do 

not    understand    our    ideals    and    institutions    and 
seek  to  overturn  them. 

II.     Prohibition  of  immigration   for  four  years  is  desirable  for 
other  reasons. 

A.  It  may  serve  to  convince  our  middle-class  people  of 
/                           the  dignity  and  worth  of  hand  labor. 

B.  It  will  preserve  the  integrit}"  of  our  free  institutions. 

C.  Statistics  would  tend  to  show  that  immigration  in 
the  past  has  acted  as  a  check  upon  the  birth-rate 
among  the  native-born. 

D.  It  is  our  duty  to  humanity  to  protect  our  standards 
of  living. 

1.  To   serve  as   a   model    and    a   goal    for    striving 

democracies  in  other  lands. 

2.  So  we  ourselves  may  be  in  a  position  to  help 
those  democracies  to  gain  their  ideals. 

3.  Free  immigration  of  labor,  as  it  is  usually  of  a 
lower  class,  tends  to  break  down  standards. 


III.  The  American   Federation  of  Labor  and  the  four  railroad 
brotherhoods  are  in  favor  of  this  legislation. 

Negative 

I.  Prohibition  of  immigration  for  four  years  is  not  necessar>'. 

A.  There  is  no  danger  of  an  over-supply  of  immigrants. 

1.  Immigration  has  failed    to    materialize    since    the 

signing  of  the  armistice. 

2.  Emigration   is   at   present   in    large   numbers   not- 
withstanding the  fact  that  labor  is  scarce  and  well 

paid. 

3.  Labor   tends   normally   to   fiow   where   it  can   get  v 
cheap  land. 

a.     Practically  all  of  the  free  land  in  this  country 
has  been  absorbed. 

B.  There  is  already  a  shortage  of  labor. 

1.  Household  servants  ar»  difHcult  to  obtain. 

2.  There  is  a  dearth  of  laborers  for  railroads,  roads 

and    public    works    where    large   numbers    of    un- 
skilled workers  are  needed. 

3.  More  unskilled  labor  is  needed  in   order  to  keep 
work  going  for  skilled  laborers. 

C.  Present    machinery     for     regulating    immigration     is 
sufficient. 

II.  Prohibition  of  immigration  is  undesirable  for  other  reasons. 

A.  Prohibition  for  four  years  will  not  keep  out  the  un- 
desirable element  permanently. 

B.  The  migratory  instinct  is  inevitable. 

I.     It  is  better  to  seek  to  regulate  it  wisely  than  try 
to  crush  it. 

C.  Prohibition    of    immigration    is  •  unp'atriotic     and  am- 
American.  "         -^ 

1.  To  be  an  American  means  to  be  actuated  by  the 

highest  motives  of  humanity. 

D.  The   loss   in   population    will    not   be   offset    as   some 
think,  b}''  an  increasing,  birth-rate. 

I.     The  birth-rate  is  controlled  by  the  price  of  food. 

2.  Prices  will  not  lower  as  long  as  there  is  a  labor 
shortage.  '•' 


E.     Prohibition  of  immigration  conllicts  with  the  new  idea 
of  internationalism. 

I.     Restriction  is  based  on  one  or  the  other  of  the 
following  assumptions : 

a.    That  a  nation  has  the   right  to    decide  who 
shall   or  shall   not  enter  its  territory  and   to 
keep  its  economic  and  social  life  to  itself, 
b.     That   some    races   are   inferior  to  others   and 
that  differences  of  race  are  a  barrier  to  eco- 
nomic assimilation  and  social  equality. 
2.     Either   of   these   assumptions   is   inconsistent   with 
internationalism  or  the  league  of  nations. 

III.  Many  social  and  economic  workers,  also  manufacturers  and 
employers  of  large  numbers  of  laborers,  are  opposed  to 
this  bill. 

A.  This  legislation  would  create  more  problems  than  it 
X  would  correct. 

B.  More  laborers  are  needed. 


B 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Articles    starred    (*)    have    been    reprinted    entirely    or    in    part    in    this 
Handbook. 

Bibliographies 

Immigration :  Naturalization,  citizenship,  Chinese,  Japanese, 
Negroes,  enlistment  of  aliens :  List  of  publications  relating  to 
above  subjects  for  sale  by  Supt.  of  Doc.  Wash,  D.C  (Price 
list  67 — 3d  Edition).     I4p.  pa.  August,  1919. 

Methodist  Book  Concern.  Immigration :  an  annotated  list  of 
the  best  available  books.    5p.     150  5th  av.,  New  York.     1919. 

Oregon.  High  School  Debating  League.  Restriction  of  immi- 
gration :     bibliography.     Mimeo.  6p.     Oregon  State  Library. 

Pittsburgh.  Carnegie  Library.  Immigration :  a  reading  list. 
I2p.  pa.  5c.     1918. 

Reely,  Mary  Katharine,  comp.  Selected  articles  on  immigration. 
2d  ed.  rev.  (Debaters'  Handbook  Series).  Bibliography 
P-  19-33-    $1.25.     H.  W.  Wilson  Co.     1917. 

Washington.  State  College.  Library  Bulletin.  No.  8.  N.  '19. 
Resolved,  That  the  immigration  of  foreign  laborers  into  the 
United  States  should  be  prohibited  for  at  least  eight  years. 
Bibliography,  p  3-6.     loc. 


General  References 

Books  and  Pamphlets 

*Behar,  M.  F.     Our  national  gates,  shut,  ajar  or  open?     up.  pa. 

National  Liberal  Immigration  League,  309  Broadway.     New 

York.  1916. 
Commons,  John  R.     Races  and  immigrants  in  America.     Mac- 

millan.  1907. 
Jenks,   Jeremiah    W.,    and   Lauck,     William   Jett.       Immigration 

problem :    a  study  of  American   immigration   conditions  and 

needs.    4th  ed.  rev.  and  enl.    *$i.75.     Funk.     1917. 


National  Coininlttrc  for  Constructive  Immigration  Legislation. 
Proposed  new  laws  for  regulating-  immigration  and  lor  raising 
the  standards  for  naturalization.  I2p.  pa.  105  E.  22d  st.  New 
York.      1920. 

National  Connnittee  for  Constructive  Immigration  Legislation. 
Scientific  regulation  of  immigration.  I2p.  pa.  105  E.  22d  st. 
New  York.     1920. 

National  Institute  of  Social  Sciences.  4  :  89-98.  Ap.  i,  'iS. 
Problems  of  immigration  and  the  foreign  horn  after  the  war. 
Henry  Pratt  Fairchild. 

Recly,  Mary  Katharine,  comp.  Selected  articles  on  immigration. 
2d  ed.  rev.  (Debaters'  Handbook  Series).  $1.25.  H.  \\ . 
Wilson   Co.     191 7. 

United  States.  Labor,  Department  of.  Bureau  of  Immigration. 
Annual  report,   1918.     p.   160-76. 

United  States.  66th  Congress,  1st  session.  House.  Percenta.;4e 
plans  for  restriction  of  immigration :  Hearings  before  the 
Committee  on  Immigration  and  Naturalization,  June  12-14, 
18-20  and  September  25,  1919.  2o6p.  pa.  Ciovt.  Ptg.  OlT. 
Wash.  D.C.     1919. 

L^nitcd  States.  66th  Congress.  1st  session.  House.  Proposed 
changes  in  naturalization  laws:  Hearings  before  the  Com- 
mittee on  Immigration  and  Naturalization.  Pts  1-6.  222p.  iia. 
Govt.  Ptg.  Off.    Wash.  D.C.     1919. 

W'arnc,  F.  J.     Immigrant  invasion.     *$2.50.     Dodd.     1913. 

W'arne,  F.  j.  Tide  of  immigration.  *$2.50.  Appleton.  New 
York.     1916. 

Periodicals 

Atlantic  Monthly.  110:388-93.  S.  '12.  Real  myth.  W.  Jett 
labor  supply.     Don  D.  Lescohier. 

Catholic  World.  104  :  289-302.  I).  '16.  Restriction  of  immigra- 
tion:     a  medley  of  arguments.     Frank  O'Hara. 

♦Economic  World,  n.s.  18:86.  jl.  19,  '19.  Return  movement 
of  immigrants  to  their  home  countries. 

♦Economic  World.  18:232.  Ag.  16,  '19.  Movement  of  immi- 
grant and  emigrant  aliens. 

*Forum.  61  :  343-8.  Mr.  '19.  Need  we  fear  immigration? 
Anthony   Caminetti. 

Independent.  90  :  159,  163.  .^g.  2,  '19.  New  melting  pot. 
Sidne\    L.  Gulick. 

Describes    the    immiijration    plan    of    the    National    Committee    for    Con- 
structive   Immigration    Legislation. 

10 


*Iron  Trade  Review.    65  :  761-3.     S,  18,  '19.     Suspend  immigra- 
tion?    What  of  industry?     A.  J.  Hain. 

journal  of  Heredity.     10  :  125-7.     Mr.  '19.     Immigration  restric- 
tion and  world  eugenics.     Prescott  F.  Hall. 

♦Literary  Digest.    60  :  17-18.     F.  8,  '19.     To  halt  immigration. 

*Literary   Digest.     61  :  66,    70.     M}.   24,   '19.     Millions   of   war- 
weary  Europeans,  says  F.  C.  Howe,  will  come  to  America. 

Literary  Digest.    61  :  131.     My.  24,  '19.    Outlook  for  immigration 
and  lower  wages. 

^^Literary  Digest.     62  :  28-9.     Jl.  5,  '19.     To  clap  the  lid  on  the 
melting-pot. 

*Monthly   Labor   Review.     9  :  1645-6.      X.   '19.      Immigration    in 
August,    1919. 

North  American  Review.    209  :  199-208.     F.  '19.     Inmiigration  in 
reconstruction.     Frances  A.  Kellor. 

Public.      22  :  368-70.       Ap.    12,    '19.       Xcw   immigration    policy. 
Sidney  L.  Gulick. 

'''Review  of   Reviews.     60  :  196-8.     Ag.   '19.     Canada  to    restrict 
immigration.     Owen  E.  McGillicuddy. 

*Scientific  Monthly.     6  :  214-23.     Mr.  '18.     A  comprehensive  im- 
migration policy  and  program.     Sidney  L.  Gulick. 

Scribner's.      58  :  635-9.      ^-    '^5-      Immigration     after     the     war. 
Frederic  C.  Howe. 

*Scribner's.    61  :  542-6.  '  My.  '17.     Our  future  immigration  policy. 
Frederic  C.   Howe. 

Affirmative  References 

Books  and  F'aiiipJilcts 

Faircliild,   Henry   Pratt.     Immigration;    a  world   mo\  ement   and 

its  American  significance.     *$i.75.     Macmillan.     1913. 
jenks,  Jeremiah  W.     Questions  of  public  policy,    p.  1-40.     *$i.25. 

Yale  University  Press.     1913. 
*MacIver,  R.  M.     Labor  in  the  changing  world,     p.   183-96.     $2. 

Dutton.     1919. 
Mitchell,    John.      Organized    labor:     its    problems,    purpose    and 

ideals,     j).   176-85.     $1.75.     American  Book  and  Bible  House. 

Philadelphia.     1903. 
Ross,  E.  A.     Old  w(jrkl  in  the  new.     *?52._|o.     rciitury.    1914. 
*LInited  States.     65th  Congress,  3d  Session.     House.  Committee 

on  Immigration  and  Naturalization:     Hearings  on  Bills  If.  R. 

13325,    13669,    14577,    L3904-     Pt.   2,   p.  33-i-\S.     Statements  of 

Frank   Morrison    and    P.   J.    McNamara.     Govt.    Ptg.    Office. 

1919. 

IX 


Periodicals 

American  Economic  Review    3  :  sup.  5-19.    Mr.  '13.     Population 

or  prosperity.     F.  A.  Fetter. 
Annals  of  the  American  Academy.     61  :  30-9.     S.  '15.     W  ar  and 

immigration.     F.  J.  Warne. 
*Annals  of  the  American  Academy.     81  :  73-9.     Ja.  '19.     Immi- 
gration standards  after  the  war.     Henry  Pratt  Fairchild. 
Atlantic   Monthly.      110:388-93.      S.    '12.     Real   myth.      \\ .    Jctt 
Lauck. 
/^Atlantic   Monthly.      110:691-6.     N.    '12.     Vanishing  American 

wage-earner.     W.  Jett  Lauck. 
-^■^Literary   Digest.     62  :  08-100.     J 1.   26,   '19.     Aliens  leaving  oni 
shores  in  large  nuniEers.     ^ 
North   American    Review.      175  :  53-60.     Jl.    02.      Immigration's 
menace  to  the  national  health.    T.  V.  Powderly. 
^^eview  of  Reviews.    59:512-16.     My.  '19.     Americanization  and 

immigration.    Robert  De  C.  Ward. 
^^Cnited  States  Immigration  Service  Bulletin,     i  :  9-12.     F.  i,    19, 
Proposed  immigration  legislation. 


Negative  References 
Books  and  Painplilcts 

Hourwich,   Isaac  A.     Immigration  and  labor.     *$2.50.     Titnani. 

1912. 
Kellor,   Frances  A.     Out  of  work.     Rev.   ed.  *$i.50.     p.    111-56. 

Putnam.     1915. 
Low,  A.   Maurice.     American   people,     v.  2.  p.  360-429.     ^$2.25. 

Houghton,  Mifflin.     191 1. 
National   Liberal   Immigration   League.      Immigration  literature. 

30  pamphlets,  pa.  gratis.    309  Broadwa3\     New  York. 
President  Wilson's  Veto  of  the  Burnett  immigration  bill.     Tarn. 

no.  s.^<  P"b.  197.     National  Liberal  Immigration  League.     300 

Broadway.     New  York.     1915. 
Sekely,  Bela.     Immigration  after  the  war.  up.  pa.  National  Im- 
migration League,  309  Broadway.     New  York.     1916. 

Periodicals 

*American  Industries.     19  :  7-     F,  '10.     Proposal  to  suspend  im- 
migration.    Stephen  C.  Mason. 

12 


American  Journal  of  Sociolog}-.  17  :  478-90.  Ja.  '12.  Immigra- 
tion and  crime.     I.  A.  Hourwich. 

♦Everybody's.  41  :48-53.  Jl.  '19.  Human  currents  of  the  war. 
Herbert  Adams  Gibbons. 

♦Jewish  Immigration  Bulletin.  9:5.  Je  '19.  \\  h}-  I  oppose  re- 
striction of  immigration.     I.  L.  Bril. 

♦Jewish   Immigration  Bulletin.     9  :  6-7,  9-10.     Je  '19.     What  re- 
striction means.     Mark  Sullivan. 
Reprinted  from  Colliers. 

Nation.     108  :  185.     F.  8  '19.     Immigration  bill. 

♦Nation.  108  :  540.  Ap.  12,  '19.  Immigration  and  international- 
ism. 

North  American  Review.  193:561-73.  Ap.  '11.  Needed— a 
domestic  immigration  polic}'.    F.  A.  Kellor. 

Outlook.  106  :  912-17.  Ap.  25,  '14.  Who  is  responsible  for  the 
immigrant  ?     F.  A.  Kellor. 

Scientific  American.  121  :  108.  Ag.  2,  '19.  Who  shall  do  the 
work.     R.  D,  La  Guardia. 


13 


GENERAL    DISCUSSION 

A  COMPREHENSIVE   IMMIGRATION   POLICY 

AND  PROGRAM^ 

The  need  of  adequate  and  wise  immigration  and  American- 
ization legislation  is  imperative.  Now,  while  war  suspends  the 
tide  of  newcomers  to  our  shores,  is  the  time  for  enacting  the 
new  laws  to  regulate  the  coming  of  fresh  aliens. 

No  one  can  foretell  how  large  or  small  will  be  the  immigra- 
tion from  the  war-ravaged  countries  of  Europe  when  the  war 
ceases.  Wages  in  America  will  be  high  and  the  demand  for 
cheap  labor  will  be  urgent.  Immigration  companies  and  steam- 
ship lines  will  seek  for  fresh  sources  of  cheap  labor  to  bring  to' 
America. 

The  influx  of  foreigners  in  recent  years  has  produced  a  seri- 
ous situation.  Our  laws  have  not  adequately  grappled  with  the 
many  kinds  of  problems  which  have  arisen.  Present  laws  afford 
no  method  of  control  either  of  the  numbers  or  of  the  race  types 
that  may  be  admitted.  We  have  reason  to  expect  a  large  immi- 
gration of  peoples  that  will  prove  extremely  difficult  of  Ameri- 
canization. 

Vast  masses  of  aliens  in  our  midst  are  not  Americanized  and 
we  have  no  effective  provision  for  their  Americanization.  We 
give  them  citizenship  with  verj^  inadequate  preparation  for  it. 
The  procedure  in  naturalization  is  needlessly  hampered  b}'  red 
tape.  We  allow  serious  congestion  of  race  groups.  Free  immi- 
gration from  Europe  constantly  threatens  standards  of  living  of 
American  workmen.  Differential  treatment  of,  and  legislation 
against,  Asiatics  produces  international  irritation.  Lack  of  laws 
makes  it  impossible  for  the  United  States  to  keep  its  treaty 
obligations  for  the  adequate  protection   of  aliens. 

These  varied  dangers  threaten  the  success  of  our  democracy. 

We  now  need  a  comprehensive   and   constructive  policy  for 

*  By  Sidney  L.  Gulick,  Secretary  of  the  Commission  on  Relations  with 
the  Orient,  of  the  Federal  Council  of  the  Churches  of  Christ  in  America. 
In   Scientific   Monthly.      6:214-23.      March,    1918. 

15 


the  regulation  of  all  immigration,  and  the  Americanization  of  all 
whom  we  admit,  a  policy  that  is  based  on  sound  economic, 
eugenic,  political  and  ethical  principles,  and  a  program  worked 
out  in  detail  for  incorporating  that  policy  into  practice. 

If  we  are  to  attain  the  best  results  we  should  have  a  series  of 
bills  that  deal  with  all  phases  of  the  immigrant  question,  in  a 
systematic,  comprehensive  and  well-coordinated  plan  in  place  of 
the  patchwork,  incomplete  and  disconnected  legislation  that  now 
exists.  Our  new  comprehensive  policy,  moreover,  must  take  into 
consideration  not  merely  the  relations  of  America  with  Europe, 
Africa  and  West  Asia,  but  also  with  China,  Japan  and  India. 
The  world  has  become  so  small  and  travel  has  become  so  easy 
that  economic  pressure  and  opportunity  are  now  bringing  all  the 
races  into  inevitable  contact  and  increasing  intermixture.  To 
avoid  the  disastrous  consequences  of  such  contacts  and  inter- 
mixtures, and  to  enable  the  United  States  not  only  to  provide  for 
her  own  prosperity,  but  also  to  make  to  the  whole  world  her  best 
contribution  for  human  betterment,  we  need  policies  that  are 
based  upon  justice  and  goodwill,  no  less  than  upon  economic  and 
eugenic  c6nsiderations. 


OUR  FUTURE   IMMIGRATION   POLICY' 

The  outstanding  feature  of  our  immigration  polic}'  has  been 
its  negative  character.  The  immigrant  is  expected  to  look  out 
for  himself.  Up  to  the  present  time  legislation  has  been  guided 
by  conditions  which  prevailed  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries.  We  have  permitted  the  immigrant  to  come ;  only  re- 
cently has  he  been  examined  for  physical,  mental,  and  moral 
defects  at  the  port  of  debarkation,  and  then  he  has  been  per- 
il mitted  to  land  and  go  where  he  willed.  This  was  the  practice  in 
colonial  days.  It  has  been  continued  without  essential  change 
down  to  the  present  time.  It  was  a  policy  which  worked  reason- 
ably well  in  earlier  times,  when  the  immigrant  passed  from  the 
ship  to  land  to  be  had  from  the  Indians,  or  in  later  generations 
from  the  government. 

And  from  generation  to  generation  the  immigrant  moved 
westward,  just  beyond  the  line  of  settlement,  where  he  found 
a  homestead  awaiting  his  labor.  These  were  the  years  of  Anglo- 
Saxon,  of  German,  of  Scandinavian,  of  north   European  settle- 

1  By  Frederic  C.  Howe,  Former  Commissioner  of  Immigration  at  the 
Port   of   New   York.      In    Scribner's.      61:542-6.      May,    1917. 

16 


mcnt,  when  the  iiiimigiation  to  this  country  was  almost  exclu- 
sively from  the  same  stock.  And  so  long  as  land  was  to  be  had 
for  the  asking  there  was  no  immigration  problem.  The  individual 
states  were  eager  for  settlers  to  develop  their  resources.  There 
were  few  large  cities.  Industry  was  just  beginning.  There  was 
relatively  little  poverty,  while  the  tenements  and  slums  of  our 
cities  and  mining  districts  had  not  yet* appeared.  This  was  the 
period  of  the  "old  immigration,"  as  it  is  called;  the  immigration 
from  the  north  of  Europe,  from  the  same  stock  that  had  made 
the  original  settlements  in  New  England,  New  York,  Pennsyl- 
vania, Virginia,  and  the  South;  it  was  the  same  stock  that  set- 
tled Ohio  and  the  Middle  West,  Kansas,  Nebraska,  and  the  Da- 
kotas. 

The  "old  immigration"  from  northern  Europe  ceased  to  be 
predominant  in  the  closing  years  of  the  last  century-.  Then  the 
tide  shifted  to  southern  Europe,  to  Italy,  Austria-Hungary,  Rus- 
sia, Poland,  and  the  Balkans.  A  new  strain  was  being  added  to 
our  Anglo-Saxon,  Germanic  stock.  The  "new  immigration"  did 
not  speak  our  language.  It  was  unfamiliar  with  self-govern- 
ment. It  was  largely  illiterate.  And  with  this  shift  from  the 
"old  immigration"  to  the  "new,"  immigration  increased  in  vol- 
ume. In  1892  the  total  immigration  was  579.663 ;  in  1894  it  fell 
to  285,631.  As  late  as  1900  it  was  but  448.572.  Then  it  began  to 
rise.  In  1903  it  was  857,046 ;  in  1905  it  reached  the  million  mark ; 
and  from  that  time  down  to  the  outbreak  of  the  war  the  total 
immigration  averaged  close  on  to  a  million  a  A'ear,  the  total  ar- 
rivals in  1914  being  1,218,480.  Almost  all  of  the  increase  came 
from  southern  Europe,  over  70  per  cent  of  the  total  being  from 
the  Latin  and  Slavic  countries.  In  1914  Austria  contributed  134,- 
831  people;  Hungary  143,321;  Italy  283,734;  Russia  255,660; 
while  the  United  Kingdom  contributed  73,417;  Germany  35,734; 
Norway  8,329;  and  Sweden  14,800. 

For  twenty  years  the  predominant  immigration  has  been  from 
south  and  central  Europe.  And  it  is  this  "new  immigration,"  so 
called,  that  has  created  the  "immigration  problem."  It  is  largely 
responsible  for  the  agitation  for  restrictive  legislation  on  the 
part  of  persons  fearful  of  the  admixture  of  races,  of  the  difficul- 
ties of  assimilation,  of  the  high  ilHteracy'of  the  southern  group; 
and  most  of  all  for  the  opposition  on  the  part  of  organized  labor 
to  the  competition  of  the  unskilled  army  of  men  who  settle  'in  the 
cities,  who  go  to  the  mines,  and  who  struggle  for,^  the  "existing 
jobs  in  competition  with  those  already  here.  For' the  newcomer 
has  to  find  work  quickly.    He  has  exhausted  what  little  resources 

17 


lie  had  in  transportation.  In  the  great  majority  of  cases  his 
transportation  has  been  advanced  by  friends  and  relatives  already 
here,  \vho  have  lured  him  to  this  counti-y  by  descriptions  of  bet- 
ter economic  conditions,  greater  opportunities  for  himself,  and 
especially  the  new  life  which  opens  up  to  his  children.  And  this 
overseas  competition  is  a  serious  problem  to  American  labor, 
especially  in  the  iron  and'  steel  industries,  in  the  mining  districts, 
in  railroad  and  other  construction  work,  into  which  employments 
the   foreigners  largely  go. 

How  seriously  the  workers  and  our  cities  are  burdened  with 
this  new  immigration  from  south  and  central  F-urope  is  in- 
dicated by  the  fact  that  56  per  cent  of  the  foreign-born  popula- 
tion in  this  country  is  in  the  States  to  the  east  of  the  Mississippi 
and  north  of  the  Ohio  Rivers,  to  which  at  least  80  per  cent  of 
the  present  incoming  immigrants  are  destined.  In  the  larger 
cities  between  70  and  80  per  cent  of  the  population  is  either  for- 
eign born  or  immediately  descended  from  persons  of  foreign 
birth.  In  New  York  City  78.6  per  cent  of  the  people  are  of  for- 
eign birth  or  immediate  foreign  extraction.  In  Boston  the  per- 
centage is  74.2,  in  Cleveland  75.8,  and  in  Chicago  77.5.  In  the 
mining  districts  the  percentage  is  even  higher.  In  other  words, 
almost  all  of  the  immigration  of  the  last  twenty  years  has  gone 
to  the  cities,  to  industry,  to  mining.  Here  the  immigrant  com- 
petes with  organized  labor.  He  burdens  our  inadequate  housing 
accommodations.  He  congests  the  tenements.  He  is  at  least  a 
problem   for  democracy'. 

But  the  effect  of  immigration  on  our  life  is  not  as  simple  as 
the  advocates  of  restriction  insist.  It  is  probable  that  the  strug- 
gle of  the  working  classes  to  improve  their  conditions  is  rendered 
more  difficult  by  the  incoming  tide  of  unskilled  labor.  It  is  prob' 
able  too  that  wages  are  kept  down  in  certain  occupations  and  thai 
employers  are  desirous  of  keeping  open  the  gate  as  a  means  of 
securing  cheap  labor  and  labor  that  is  difficult  to  organize.  It  is 
also  probably  true  that  the  immigrant  is  a  tem.porary  burden  to 
democrac>'  and  especialK'  to  our  cities.  But  the  subject  is  not 
nearly  as  simple  as  this.  The  immigrant  is  a  consumer  as  well  as 
a  producer.  He  creates  a  market  for  the  products  of  labor  even 
while  he  competes  with'  labor.  And  he  creates  new  trades  and 
new  industries,  like  the  clothing  trades  of  New  York,  Chicago, 
and  Cleveland,  which  employ  hundreds  of  thousands  of  workers. 
And  a  large  part  of  the  immigrants  assimilate   rapidly. 

In  addition,  the  new  stock  from  southern  and  central  Europe 
brings  to  this  country  qualities  of  mind  and  of  temperament  that 

18 


may  in  time  greatly  enrich  tlic  more  severe  and  practical-minded 
races  of  northern  Europe. 


OUR  NATIONAL  GATES— SHUT,  AJAR.  OR 

OPEN?^ 

When  the  House  of  Representatives  failed  to  pass  the  Bur- 
nett Literacy  Test  bill  over  President  Wilson's  veto  last  year, 
another  chapter  was  ended  in  the  history  of  a  long  and  bitter 
controversy  about  our  national  gates.  The  first  began  with  the 
settlement  of  this  land  and  was  terminated  by  the  War  of  Inde-- 
pendence;  the  second  was  closed  by  the  disappearance  of  the 
Know-Xothing  party  shortly  before  the  Civil  War,  the  third  by 
President  Cleveland's  veto  of  the  Lodge  literacy  test  bill,  the 
fourth  b}-  the  creation  of  an  immigration  commission  in  1907. 
The  fifth  was  closed  by  President  Taft's  veto  of  the  Dillingham- 
Burnett  bill  rtwo  years  ago,!  whereupon  began  the  sixth,  which 
culminated  as  told  above.  An  interesting  seventh  chapter  is  now 
being  enacted. 

Rise  of  Anti-Alien  Feeling 

Of  anti-alien  feeling  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies little  need  be  said.  Those  were  still  the  dark  days  of 
l)igotry'.  Nor  is  this  the  place  for  a  long  description  of  the  sec- 
ond chapter  of  exclusionism — Know-Nothingism.  The  country 
was  j^oung.  Universities  were  few,  and  higher  education  meant 
little  more  than  the  humanities.  Men  of  enlightenment  were 
scarce. 

During  the  Civil  War  and  subsequent  period  of  reconstruc- 
tion, anti-alien  feeling  existed  in  a  latent  state.  It  smouldered 
along  until  the  early  eighties,  when  immigration  from  Italy,  * 
Russia  and  Austria-Hungary  increased.  Then  the  sentiment 
broke  out  anew.  In  Xew  England  especially  it  became  pro- 
nounced, and  in  1893  the  Immigration  Restriction  League  was 
founded,  ^ 

That  same  year  Senator  Lodge  introduced  the  first  literacy 
test  bill,  which,  reintroduced  three  years  later,  was  passed  by 
Congress  early  in  1897.  Its  supporters  thought  their  triumph  had 
come,  as  there  had  been  no  systematic  opposition  to  it.  That  it 
v.-as  objected  to,  hov.evcr,  was  evidenced  when  President  Cle\e- 

^  By   Manoel    F.    Behar.      Reprinted    from    the    New    York    Evening   Post 
by   the    National    Liberal    Immigration    League,    May,    19 16. 

19 


iV'[ 


land  vetoed  it  as  an  unjustified  "radical  departure  from  our  na- 
tional policy."  The  House  promptly  passed  it  over  the  veto  by 
193  votes  to  2>7y  but  it  failed  in  the  Senate,  which  had  previously 
passed  it  by  52  votes  to  10. 

***** 

How  came  the  Lodge  bill  to  receive  so  many  votes  ?  How  is  it 
that  various  exclusion  bills  are  introduced  session  after  session, 
and  have  come  near  becoming  law?  There  are,  of  course,  active  in- 
dividual exponents,  and  also  private  citizens,  unaffiliated  with 
the  exclusionist  movement,  who  believe  that  immigration  is 
largely  responsible  for  pauperism,  insanitj^  crime,  unemploy- 
ment, and  other  evils.     All  these  are  the  Restrictionists. 

In  addition,  there  have  sprung  up  during  the  last  quarter- 
century  a  number  of  organizations,  secret  of  nature,  invidious  in 
their  workings,  and  powerful  enough  to  merit  at  least  a  passing 
mention  even  in  a  brief  description  of  the  exclusionist  move- 
ment. The}^  generall}'  assume  a  patriotic  guise,  and  flaunt  such 
terms  as  "Freedom,"  "America,"  or  "Libert}^"  of  which  they  style 
themselves  children  or  custodians.  They  conduct  a  continuous 
campaign  throughout  the  countiy.  They  maintain  a  lobby  at 
Washington.  The}'  publish  newspapers.  They  have  well-paid 
organizers,  who,  to  show  efficiency,  often  prepare  their  field  In- 
spreading  misconceptions.  Whenever  a  vote  on  an  immigration 
bill  impends,  they  flood  Congress  with  appeals,  the  tone  of  which 
at  times  reaches  extraordinary  ferv'or.  These  forces  constitute 
the  New  Know-Nothingism. 

However,  the  most  powerful  advocates  of  exclusion  speak 
for  a  class  of  citizens  who,  according  to  some  economists,  have 
profited  by  immigration  and  would  suffer  from  its  stoppage — 
the  skilled  laboring  class.  The  executive  council  of  the  Ameri- 
can Federation  has  exerted  eveiy  effort  to  secure  arbitrary 
checks  on  immigration,  as  have  the  Knights  of  Labor,  the  United 
Mine  Workers,  the  Brotherhood  of  Locomotive  Engineers,  and 
other  unions.  However,  this  attitude  may  be  dictated  from 
above.  Indeed,  labor  organizations  with  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  members  have  gone  on  record  as  opposed  to  further  restric- 
tion. 

The  anti-immigration  movement  is  thus  composed  of  the  Re- 
strictionists, the  Know-Nothings,  and  Organized  Labor. 

Attempts  at  Exclusions 

Ten  years  ago  there  came  a  new  move.  Representative  Gard- 
ner introduced  a  bill   raising  the  head-tax  on  every  immigrant, 

20 


which  was  then  two  dollars,  to  fort}-  dollars.  For  the  first  time 
in  the  histon,-  of  the  nation  it  became  necessary  for  opponents 
of  exclusion  to  organize.  Their  movement  started,  fittingly 
enough,  in  Boston.  Some  time  later  headquarters  were  estab- 
lished in  Xew  York,  and  the  National  Liberal  Immigration 
League  was  launched,  with  President  Eliot,  Andrew  Carnegie, 
Bishop  Potter,  Gen.  Trac}'',  and  William  Lloyd  Garrison  among 
the  committeemen.  In  W'ashington  its  formation  was  felt.  The 
$40  head  tax  bill  was  shelved,  and  the  exclusionists  centered  their 
efforts  on  the  educational  test. 

Congress  remained,  however,  impressed  by  the  votes  con- 
trolled by  organized  labor  and  other  exclusionist  influences,  and 
in  1906  a  bill  providing  for  the  educational  test  was  passed  by 
the  Senate  almost  unanimously.  President  Roosevelt  supported 
it,  and  a  canvass  of  the  House  showed  a  large  majority  there  in 
favor  of  it.  Speaker  Cannon  and  Representatives  Bennet, 
Moore,  Goldfogle,  and  Sabath  fought  it  tooth  and  nail.  The 
newl}'  organized  liberals  also  surprised  the  House,  when  delega- 
tions representing  various  nationalities  proceeded  to  Washington 
at  their  behest.    The  bill  failed  in  the  House. 

Iniuiigration   Commission   FovDied 

In  Januar}-,  1907,  the  National  Liberal  Immigration  League, 
seeing  its  opportunity,  petitioned  President  Roosevelt  and  Con- 
gress to  create  a  commission  to  investigate  the  subject.  This 
was  accepted  as  a  substitute  for  the  literacy  test,  and  was  in- 
cluded in  the  Immigration  bill,  from  which  the  literacy  test  was 
dropped.  Thus  freed  from  a  vexatious  issue,  ■•  the  bill  was 
quickly  passed  by  Congress,  and  signed  by  President  Roosevelt 
on  Februar\-  20.  In  two  other  particulars  the  enactment  of  the 
law  of  1907,  which  ended  our  fourth  chapter,  was  a  compro- 
mise. One  was  that  the  head-tax  w^as  doubled,  although  the  $2  tax 
had  already  yielded  a  surplus  of  millions  above  all  the  expenses 
of  the  immigration  sers'ice.  This  was  of  some  satisfaction  to 
the  exclusionists.  The  liberals  gained  a  desired  point  in  that 
the  new  law  created  a  division  of  information  "to  promote  a 
beneficial  distribution  of  aliens." 

The  creation  of  a  commission  v;as  expected  to  aft'ord  both 
sides  a  two-year  breathing  spell,  needed  by  the  liberals  to  per- 
fect their  organization.  This  respite  was  soon  interrupted  by 
new  moves  on  the  part  of  the  exclusionists,  so  that  the  fifth  stage 
of  the  controversy  began  before  the  Commission  had  made  its 
report.     Attempts   were   first   made   to    railroad   restrictive   bills, 

21 


but,  these  failing,  the  exclusionists  tried  new  tacks.  One  was  to 
suppress  the  Federal  Distribution  Bureau.  They  said  it  could  be 
used  for  strike-breaking,  and  on  the  whole  did  more  harm  than 
good.  The  liberals  on  the  other  hand,  claimed  that  "the  problem 
of  immigration  is  mainly  one  of  distribution,"  and  asked  that 
the  scheme  be  given  a  trial.  The  upshot  was  that  the  division 
remained,  but  its  appropriation  was  cut  down  and  its  scope  lim- 
ited. 

In  December,  1910,  the  Immigration  Commission  brought  in 
to  Congress  a  preliminary  report,  finally  adopted  by  its  members 
"within  a  half-hour  of  the  time  when  under  the  law  it  had  to  l)e 
filed."  Commenting  on  it,  Prof,  H.  Parker  Willis,  editorial  ad- 
viser of  the  Commission,  made  the  following  admission : 

"It  is  a  fact  that  much  of  the  Commission's  information  is 
still  undigested,  and  is  presented  in  a  form  which  affords  no 
more  than  a  foundation  for  the  work  of  future  inquiries.  *  *  * 
The  result  has  been,  instead  of  a  small  and  finished  study,  a 
large  and  uncompleted  body  of  data."  (The  Survey,  January  7, 
1911.) 

The  Commission,  nevertheless,  held  that  further  restriction 
was  "demanded  by  economic,  moral,  and  social  considerations," 
and  eight  of  its  nine  members — Bennet  dissenting — said:  "We 
favor  the  reading  and  writing  test  as  the  most  feasible  single 
method  of  restricting  undesirable  immigration." 

Months  afterwards,  the  information  gathered  appeared  in 
forty-one  octavo  volumes. 

Taft's  Veto  of  Dillingham  Bill 

Embodying  the  recommendations  of  the  Commission,  a  bill 
was  prepared  under  the  direction  of  its  chairman.  Senator  Dil- 
lingham, who  introduced  it  in  August,  191 1.  It  codified  the  ex- 
isting law  and  contained,  besides  the  educational  test,  provisions 
which  would  have  required  for  their  enforcement  the  promulga- 
tion of  regulations  scarcely  in  keeping  with  American  traditions. 
All  immigrants,  for  instance,  were  to  provide  themselves  with 
certificates  of  admission  and  identity,  as  well  as  return  certificates 
upon  leaving  the  country.  The  Dillingham  bill  had  a  lively  history, 
and  disagreements  between  House  and  Senate  and  their  commit- 
tees furnished  several  times  an  occasion  for  a  vote,  which  was 
invariably  in  favor  of  restriction  by  a  large  majority.  It  v»as 
finally  passed  by  the  House  on  January  31,  1913,  and  by  the 
Senate  on  February  4,  without  division  in  either  case. 

On  February  6,  President  Taft  adopted  the  unusual  procedure 

22 


of  giving  a  hearing  on  the  bill,  which  was  attended  by  about  80 
restrictionists,  about  150  liberals,  and  a  delegation  from  medical 
societies.  Under  the  Constitution,  the  President  has  ten  days  in 
which  either  to  sign  a  bill  or  return  it  to  Congress  without  his 
approval.  After  that  period,  should  he  not  veto  it,  it  becomes 
law.  Mr.  Taft  did  not  even  express  his  view  one  way  or  the 
other  until  the  evening  of  the  tenth  day,  February  14,  when,  the 
W  hite  House  stenographers  having  gone  home,  he  wrote  with  his 
own  hand  a  brief  veto  message,  giving  the  educational  test  as 
the  sole  reason  for  his  disapproval.  On  February  18,  the  Senate 
passed  the  bill  over  the  President's  veto,  by  a  vote  of  72  to  9. 
The  following  day  it  failed  of  passage  in  the  House  by  213  votes 
to  114. 

Several  days  afterwards,  Woodrow  Wilson  was  installed  as 
President.  His  opposition  to  further  restriction  was  known ;  but 
the  immigration  service  was  placed  in  the  new  Department  of 
Labor,  whose  head.  Secretary  B.  W.  Wilson,  was  known  as  an 
exclusionist.  About  twenty  bills  relating  to  immigration  have 
been  introduced  most  of  which — including  one  introduced  by 
Representative  Burnett  identical  with  that  vetoed  by  President 
Taft — were  restrictive. 

Schemes  For  Restriction 

Here  are  some  of  these  schemes : 

(i.)  The  educational  or  literacy  test.  (In  the  Burnett  bill 
the  immigrant  was  required  to  read;  in  others,  to  write  as 
well.) 

(2.)  The  increase  of  the  head-tax  from  lour  to  eight  dol- 
lars in  the  Burnett  bill,  to  more  in  others.  This  tax  has  already 
yielded  a  surplus  of  some  $11,000,000,  all  of  which,  in  the  words 
of  the  Commissioner-General  of  Immigration,  "has  come  out  of 
the  pockets,  not  of  the  taxpayer  of  this  country,  but  of  aliens 
who  are  applying  for  admission."  The  immigration  service  re- 
quires about  $2,000,000  yearly. 

(3.)  The  extension  of  the  Contract  Labor  law  to  "mental" 
laborers,  a  provision  aimed  at  skilled  artisans,  musicians,  and  the 
like. 

(4.)  The  exclusion  of  "persons  of  constitutional  psycho- 
pathic inferiorit}',"  a  proposal  which  provoked  humorous  com- 
ments, because  its  advocates  never  could  agree  as  to  its  definition. 
The  existing  law  bars  out  "idiots,  imbeciles,  feeble-minded  per- 
sons, epileptics,  insane  persons,"  and  the  like. 

23 


(5.)  Although  the  existing  law  keeps  out  beggars,  paupers, 
and  persons  likely  to  become  a  public  charge,  Mr.  Burnett  and 
others  in  their  bills  added  "vagrants." 

(6.)  The  "percentage  scheme,"  i.e.,  that  immigration  from 
any  country  during  any  one  year  be  summarily  restricted  to  a 
certain  percentage  of  the  number  of  immigrants  from  that  coun- 
try in  the  United  States. 

(7.)  That  male  laborers  must  produce  certificates  showing 
that  during  one  year  immediately  preceding  their  emigration 
the}'  have  earned  a  certain  wage,  which  must  be  a  stated  per- 
centage of  the  average  wage  paid  in  America  for  the  same  kind 
of  labor. 

(8.)  That  adult  males  be  subjected  to  a  physical  examina- 
tion and  strength  test  equivalent  to  that  for  Army  recruits. 

The  Burnett  bill,  after  a  hot  debate,  passed  the  House  on 
February  4,  1914,  by  a  vote  of  252  to  126,  or  exactly  two  to  one, 
and  found  its  way  to  the  Senate  Committee  on  Immigration.  Its 
Chairman,  Senator  Smith,  reported  it  favorabh'  on  March  19, 
not  only  with  the  Burnett  and  other  House  restrictive  proposals, 
but  with  additional  ones,  such  as  the  "psjxhopathic  inferiority" 
clause. 

Several  months  later  the  war  broke  out,  and  friends  and  foes 
of  immigration  dragged  it  into  the  Burnett  bill  discussion.  As 
was  to  be  expected,  restrictionists,  exclusionists,  and  Know- 
Nothings  found  reasons  for  closing  the  gates.  Prof.  J.  W.  Jenks 
declared  that  the  war  "would  undoubtedly  force  the  United 
States  to  make  changes  in  its  Immigration  law  to  prevent  this 
country  being  flooded  with  Europeans  after  peace  has  come,"  and 
favored  our  making  treaties  with  European  nations  to  limit  the 
post-war  influx.  The  American  Federation  of  Labor,  anticipat- 
ing a  great  rush,  urged  Congress  to  enact  the  exclusion  of 
illiterates. 

That  most  liberals  minimized  this  sentiment  was  indicated  by 
the  scarcity  of  reassuring  utterances,  until  the  Liberal  Immigra- 
tion league,  in  December,  refuted  the  contentions  of  the  restric- 
tionists. It  issued  its  arguments  shortly  before  the  Senate  took 
up  the  Burnett  bill,  that  there  is  really  no  valid  reason  for  fear- 
ing the  prospect  of  a  large  post-war  immigration,  if  properly 
handled. 

The  liberals'  reply  was  well  timed.  The  Senate  practically 
avoided  the  subject;  but  its  desire  to  enact  a  law  checking  im- 
migration was  unalterable.     After  little  discussion  it  passed  the 

24 


lUiriK'tt  bill  on  January  2  by  50  votes  to  7,  with  the  literacy  test 
uHvl  several  amendments  which  necessitated  a  conference.  The 
conferees  reported  on  January  9  a  bill  from  which  several  of  the 
"fancy  exclusion  schemes"  had  been  struck  out.  The  literacy 
test,  the  exclusion  of  political  refugees,  and  the  "constitutional 
i)sychopathic  inferiority"  provision  were  retained.  In  this  final 
form  the  bill  was  passed  by  the  Senate  on  January  14,  without 
division,  and  by  the  House  on  January  15  (227  to  94).  Mr.  Wil- 
son not  only  followed  Mr.  Taft's  precedent  in  holding  a  hearing 
— but  he,  too,  waited  until  the  tenth  day  before  he  issued  his  veto 
message.  In  it  he  stated:  "If  the  people  of  this  country  have 
made  up  their  minds  to  limit  the  number  of  immigrants  by  arbi- 
trary test  *  *  *  it  is  their  privilege  to  do  so.  I  am  their  servant 
and  have  no  license  to  stand  in  their  wa}-.  *  *  *  Let  the  plat- 
forms of  parties  speak  out  on  this  policy,  and  the  people  pro- 
nounce their  wish," 

This  places  the  question  squarely  in  the  hands  of  the  elec- 
torate and  introduces  it  as  an  important  issue  of  the  presidential 
campaign. 

As  soon  as  this  message  had  been  read  before  the  House, 
Burnett  moved  to  pass  his  bill  over  the  veto.  It  was  agreed  to 
have  this  motion  discussed  one  week  later.  Exclusion  bitterness 
v.as  not  lacking  during  that  period,  and  it  was  urged  that  the 
liberals  wanted  to  "flood  the  country  with  cheap  labor."  The 
American  Federation  of  Labor  came  out  with  scarehead,  muck- 
raking bulletins.  In  the  end,  the  Burnett  motion  failed  to  re- 
ceive the  necessary  two-thirds  vote. 

For  all  that,  the  vote  in  the  House  was  one  of  the  largest  in 
the  history  of  Congress.  There  were  261  ayes  and  136  na3's,  or  no 
less  than  397  Representatives  voting  out  of  423.  This  is  but  one 
fact  among  many  indicating  that  the  controversy  over  immigra- 
tion restriction  is  one  actively  participated  in  b}'  a  much  greater 
proportion  of  the  American  people  than  is  generally  believed — 
even  by  some  of  those  engaged  in  it ! 

Mr.  Burnett  and  the  exclusionists  did  not  lose  heart.  When 
the  Sixty-fourth  Congress  convened  in  December,  191 5,  the  same 
bill  was  re-introduced,  and  on  March  30,  the  House  passed  it  by 
308  votes  to  87.  The  liberals  put  up  a  strong  fight,  but  there  were 
new  phases  of  the  immigration  problem  which  had  taken  hold  of 
the  public  mind  without  being  understood — questions  of  pre- 
paredness,   "hyphenates,"  etc.     As  if  the  drastic  restrictions  ot 

25 


the  Burnett  bill  would  increase  the  loyalty  oi  our  foreign-born 
population ! 

[This  bill  was  finally  passed  by  Congress  in  February  191 7 
over  the  second  veto  of  President  Wilson.  It  contains  provi- 
sions for  a  literacy  test. — Ed.] 


NEED  WE  FEAR  IMMIGRATION? 

All  prophecy  right  now  can  consist  of  little  more  than  con- 
jecture, and  by  the  nature  of  conditions  must  be  largely  futile. 
This  is  particularly  true  of  prophecies  as  to  immigration,  for  we 
do  not  know  what  the  policies  of  governments,  including  our 
own,  will  be,  nor,  more  important  still,  what  effect  the  war  and 
its  aftermath  will  have  on  the  instincts  and  inclinations  of  those 
people  who  might  be  classed  as  potential  immigrants  to  our  coun- 
try. 

Shall  our  pre-war  record  of  immigration  be  re-established  or 
exceeded,  or  will,  as  some  predict,  the  tide  turn  the  other  way 
and  America  become  an  emigrant  instead  of  an  immigrant  na- 
tion? There  is  but  one  concrete,  non-conjectural  answer  which 
is,    "We  do  not  know\" 

No  doubt  the  effect  of  the  war  on  the  migration  and  distribu- 
tion of  people  will  be  far-reaching  but  just  how  no  one  can  in 
detail  tell  with  any  degree  of  precision. 

One  would  have  thought  naturally  that  many  Europeans 
would  have  endeavored  to  escape  the  actual  fires  of  war  by 
emigrating  to  America  or  other  countries  far  from  the  war  zone. 
Of  course  shipping  and  other  conditions  made  emigration  diffi- 
cult. How^ever,  it  would  seem  that  the  war  tended  to  depress 
rather  than  to  stimulate  the  instinct  of  migration  among  the 
peoples  most  vitally  affected  by  the  violence  of  the  conflict. 

Immigration  to  this  country  from  Europe  fell  off  tremendous- 
ly as  soon  as  the  war  began  in  1914,  and  continued  to  decline 
more  or  less  steadily  until,  during  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30, 
1918,  there  was  but  little  net  gain  in  our  population  from  that 
source.  In  fact  durmg_that  year  onIy„iKx6iS4mmigrant  aliens 
entered  the  Ijmted  Stales  From  all  sources,  while  9j,585_yjTn"''~ 
j^r'SnT  alieTiTleft  the  country  during  the  same  period.  This  left  a 
net  gam  of  less  than~i8,ooo.  "^ 

1  By  AntEony  CaminettT;  Commissioner  general  of  Immigration.  In 
the  Forum.      61:343-8.      March,   1919. 

26 


The  decade  preceding  the  opening  of  the  European  war  gave 
us  annually  an  average  immigration  exceeding  one  million  and 
the  net  increase  in  population  from  immigration  sources  in  the 
fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1914,  was  769,276. 

What  Influences  Immigration 

SPEAKING  broadly  two  considerations  underlie  nearly  all 
alien  immigration : 

1.  Social   conditions. 

2,  Economic  conditions. 

The  first  brought  about  the  founding  and  original  develop- 
ment of  our  country. 

The  second  accounted  largely  for  the  phenomenal  growth  in 
population  characterizing  the  last  fifty  years  of  our  history  and 
upon  which  was  builded  our  modern-day  industrial  greatness. 

Whatever  changes  the  war  will  cause,  it  may  be  assumed  that 
the  migration  of  peoples  wall  continue  to  be  influenced  as  hereto- 
fore by  social  and  economic  conditions,  barring,  of  course,  arti- 
ficial restraints  or  inducements. 

Therefore,  immigration  to  the  United  States  or  emigration 
from  the  United  States  in  coming  3'ears  is  apt  to  depend  sub- 
stantiall}'  on  the  social  and  economic  conditions  existing  in  this 
and  those  other  countries  whose  citizens  are  admissable  as  im- 
migrants. 

Thus  the  eflfect  of  the  war  on  immigration  wall  be  to  a  large 
extent,  for  some  3'ears,  influenced  by  the  political  and  economic 
changes  caused  or  produced  b}^  the  war. 

Social  Improvements  Abroad  Due  to   the   War 

It  is  probable  that  the  war  will  produce  great  social  improve- 
ments throughout  most  of  Europe.  The  many  reforms  projected 
and  the  promise  of  land  distribution  to  the  masses  in  many  coun- 
tries where  hitherto  it  has  been  held  by  the  privileged  few  may 
retard  the  current  that  has  been  flowing  towards  us  for  genera- 
tions ;  and  yet,  with  all  that,  the  average  European  is  likely  to 
continue  to  look  upon  our  country  as  the  great  haven  of  free- 
dom. And  there  is  no  doubt  in  my  mind  that  many  thousands 
will  continue  to  seek  refuge  here  for  the  same  reasons,  though 
they  may  not  be  so  potent,  as  inspired  the  bulk  of  our  early  im- 
migration. 

Nothing  but  pure  conjecture  can  be  ventured  as  to  the  future 

27 


operation  of  the  other  chief  moving  force  in  the  tide  of  immigra- 
tion, i.e.,  economic  conditions. 

If  European  countries  maintain  the  validity  of  their  war  ob- 
Hgations,  taxes  will  in  future  years  demand  a  tribute  which  lew 
persons  until  lately  believed  any  people  could  bear.  Those  bur- 
dens ma}'  be  reduced  somewhat  through  lessened  expenditures  on 
military  establishments,  more  economical  governments  and  more 
equitable  distribution  of  the  taxes,  but  that  they  will  be  far  be- 
yond those  of  anti-bellum  days,  then  considered  highly  oppres- 
sive, is  certain. 

Yet  we  must  realize  that  the  citizens  of  a  number  of  Euro- 
pean countries,  England  of  course  is  included  in  this  statement, 
bore,  during  the  past  four  years,  burdens  far  weightier  than  any 
they  can  expect  for  the  future ;  and  that  those  burdens  w  ere 
accompanied  in  some  ways  by  a  degree  of  individual  prosperity 
among  the  masses  exceeding  any  they  had  ever  enjoyed  in  peace 
times.  That  such  prosperity  was  economically  false,  may  be 
true ;  but  the  fact  is  that,  despite  the  tremendous  tax  of  active 
war,  workmen  in  nearly  all  the  countries  involved  enjoyed  better 
wages,  and  more  favorable  wage  margins,  than  the}-  had  been 
accustomed  to. 

While  food  conditions  in  Europe  lor  the  present  are  distres- 
sing and  threaten  much  suffering,  such  is  only  a  temporary  or 
passing  factor  which  will  be  removed  as  peace-time  production 
gets  under  way. 

We  must  remember  also  that  the  four  years  of  war  had  great 
adverse  effect  on  the  populations  of  European  countries.  W  hile 
emigration  all  but  ceased,  millions  were  killed  or  died  from  dis- 
ease or  wounds  at  the  front,  millions  were  incapacitated,  millions 
oF  civilians  died  or  were  broken  by  the  strains  and  privations  of 
war,  and  the  birth-rate  dropped  almost  universally. 

Then,  also,  it  may  be  estimated  that  there  is  more  work  at 
hand  in  Europe  for  those  who  survive,  or  rather  more  work 
needing  to  be  done  than  was  the  case  before.  All  the  vast 
destruction  of  war  calls,  at  least  potentially,  for  replacement  and 
the  deficits  in  the  implements  of  peace-time  commerce  caused 
l)y  the  deflection  of  energies  into  the  activities  of  war  need  to  be 
replenished.  Indeed,  the  outlook  for  the  European  w^orkingman 
of  the  peasant  class,  barring  the  period  of  adjustment  from  war 
to  peace,  may  be  much  better  than  it  was  before  the  war. 

Despite  the  tremendous  destruction  caused  by  the  war  and  the 

28 


huge  debts  incurred  by  the  governments  involved,  and  the  conse- 
(juent  possible  increase  in  taxation,  it  is  not  extravagant  to 
imagine  a  post-war  Europe  offering  to  the  potential  immigrant 
attractions  superior  to  those  he  had  prior  to  1914. 

It  is  also  true  that  the  experience  of  war  intensified  the  love 
of  most  Europeans  for  their  native  lands  and  gave  added 
potency  to  the  feeling  of  Auld  Lang  Syne.  Many  thousands  whc 
othenvise  would  have  sought  new  lands  will  now  find  it  difficult 
to  break  the  bonds  of  blood  and  suffering  which  the  war  has 
added  to  the  usual  ties  binding  them  to  the  environment  of  their 
fathers. 

Large  Immigration  of  Soldiery  Possible 

CONVERSELY,  the  conditions  mentioned  may  inspire  many 
to  seek  new  scenes  in  which  to  try  and  forget  the  experiences 
they  have  known  and  witnessed;  and  this  may  also  affect  the  mil- 
lions of  soldiers,  most  of  whom — despite  the  heavy  casualty  lists 
— are  strong  and  virile,  and  will  be  released  from  the  armies  to  find 
new  life  niches  wherever  they  can.  The  migratory  spirit  has 
ever  been  strong  among  veterans  of  wars.  And  the  veterans 
of  the  Allied  armies  are  likely  to  feel  a  veneration  and  respect 
for  America  even  exceeding  that  always  felt  by  the  masses  in 
Europe.  Contact  with  our  soldiers  no  doubt  has  enhanced  their 
visions  of  American  liberty,  freedom  and  economic  well-being 
even  beyond  the  reports  of  fact  and  fancy  which  have  ever 
made  America  a  fairyland  of  promise  to  the  peasantry  of  the 
Old  World. 

Of  course  immigrants  will  come. 

Events  only  will  indicate  the  comparative  extent  and  duration 
of  the  movement.  No  doubt  considerable  more  will  come  as  soon 
as  travel  facilities  are  provided  than  arrived  during  the  active 
war  years,  when  as  stated  the  net  additions  to  our  population 
from  that  source  were  negligible.  Whether  the  tide  will  reach 
former  proportions  depends  upon  circumstances  in  this  country 
and  abroad. 

Whatever  may  happen  in  the  matter  of  volume,  we  may  be 
assured  that  under  existing  laws  there  will  be  such  an  inspection 
that  will  cause  to  be  debarred  all  those  who  cannot  pass  the  pre- 
scribed tests.  These  wall  include  not  only  all  of  those  physically, 
mentally  and  morally  not  entitled  to  admission,  but  also  that 
still  m.ore  undesirable  type  commonly  referred  to  as  anarchists, 
who  come  for  license  rather  than  freedom. 


29 


1 

■  Will  the  United  States  Become  an  Emigrant  Nation? 

The  statement  recently  given  public  attention  that  the  United 
States  is  in  danger  of  becoming  an  emigrant  nation,  should  not 
be  taken  seriously.  No  doubt  many  residents  of  this  country  of 
foreign  nativity  whose  kin  have  suffered  from  the  privations  and 
horrors  of  war  may  visit  the  place  of  their  birth  to  give  comfort 
and  aid  to  their  loved  ones;  but  in  my  opinion  a  large  majority 
of  them  will  return  to  the  places  in  which  they  have  prospered. 
No  valid  foundation  has  been  found  upon  which  to  base  the 
radical  change  predicted.  Such  statements  have  encouraged  plans 
to  bring  in  laborers,  now  prohibited  by  law,  to  fill  the  places  oL 
those  who  w^ould  become  part  of  the  emigrating  classes. 

Without  novv  taking  up  the  claim  that  more  laborers  will  l>c 
needed,  whether  or  not  the  prediction  is  verified,  I  desire  to  call 
attention  to  the  fact  that  a  supply  exists  in  abundance  in  Porto 
Rico,  the  Virgin  Islands  and  the  Philippines.  What  better  way 
could  be  found  to  build  up  these  possessions  or  what  more  suit- 
able plan  be  devised  to  bind  them  to  us,  to  obtain  their  confidence, 
to  secure  their  trade,  and  aid  their  development,  than  to  engage 
a  portion  of  their  people  in  our  industries  on  the  mainland?  \\'e 
would  benefit  them  immensely  and  also  avoid  the  reappearance 
of  a  disturbing  problem  that  it  has  been  our  hope,  from  economic 
and  other  viewpoints,  had  been  settled  more  than  a  quarter  of  a 
century  ago. 


MILLIONS  OF  WAR-WEARY  EUROPEANS, 

SAYS  F.  C.  HOWE,  WILL  COME 

TO  AMERICA ' 

Two  months  ago,  Commissioner  Howe  admits,  he  held  the 
opinion  that,  for  a  considerable  time  after  the  war,  the  United 
States  would  have  to  face  problems  of  emigration  rather  than 
immigration.  But  the  fact  is  beginning  to  become  apparent,  in 
his  opinion,  that  Europe  is  on  the  verge  of  economic  exhaustion. 
"She  has  lost  her  power  to  come  back,"  temporarily  at  least,  he 
says,  and  offers  this  analysis  of  the  situation  as  it  affects  emigra- 
tion: 

"Europe  can  not  now  make  loans  for  purposes  of  restoration 
and   reconstruction.     One   feels  almost   inclined  to   say  that   she 

*  Literary   Digest.      61:66-70.      May   24,    1919. 

30 


can  not  even  make  plans  toward  these  ends.  The  plans  that  are 
being  made  are  falling  entirely  short  of  the  means  they  should 
afford,  I  think  that  certainly  in  France,  and  quite  probably  in 
England,  the  programs  that  are  being  outlined  work  definitely,  in- 
escapably, toward  reaction. 

"This  would  mean,  of  course,  that  not  only  would  conditions 
become  what  they  were  before,  but  they  would  wipe  out  much  of 
the  progress  of  recent  years.  That  is  a  thing  that  the  men  who 
have  waged  this  war  would  never  stand  for. 

'"The  line  of  the  record  of  immigration  to  this  country-  follows 
with  barometric  fidelity  the  record  of  economic  conditions  here 
and  abroad.  You  may  tell  b}^  looking  at  this  line  when  times  are 
hard  in  Europe  and  good  in  America;  when  they  are  bad  here 
and  good,  or  comparatively  good,  there. 

"I  should  say  that  a  very  small  percentage  of  the  immigrants 
of  recent  years,  at  least,  have  come  here  to  find  the  political  or 
religious  freedom  they  were  denied  at  home. 

"Not  fewer  than  4,000,000  or  5,000,000  Europeans  are  eagerly 
looking  toward  America  in  these  first  after-the-war  days  for  the 
economic  freedom  that  seems  impossible  of  achievement  at  home. 
If  conditions  w^ere  favorable  the  number  might  be  found  to  be 
very  much  greater  than  this,  but  in  spite  of  everything  it  is  quite 
certainl}'  not  smaller. 

"Conditions,"  he  declared,  "are  not  favorable.  It  is  not  pos- 
sible for  an  immigrant  to  enter  this  countr}'  unless  his  passport 
has  been  viseed  by  the  Government  of  the  land  he  has  left.  It  is 
extremely  improbable  that  the  Government  of  Europe  will  grant 
such  approvals  at  his  time,  or  for  a  considerable  time  to  come. 
The  reasons  for  this  are  numerous  and  varied.  No  European 
country  has,  as  yet,  put  up  the  bars  against  emigration.  What 
they  may  do  is,  of  course,  another  thing.  General  Petain's  re- 
mark to  me,  ...  is  suggestive  of  the  attitude  that  may  be  taken. 
In  my  opinion  it  is  not  likely  that  there  will  be  legislation  until 
some  significant  movement  becomes  apparent.  Legislative  bars 
are  not  needed  now.  Means  of  transportation  are  so  lacking 
that  little  else  is  required.  The  world's  tonnage  is  at  a  desper- 
ately low  mark.  What  is  available  must  be  used  for  a  long  time 
to  come  by  the  military  authorities.  What  is  not  taken  by  them, 
and  much  of  the  rest  as  military  demands  decrease,  v/ill  be 
needed  for  the  transportation  of  foodstuffs  and  of  raw  materials. 

"Only  those  who  can  show  the  best  of  reasons  will  be  able  to 
travel  for  months  to  come.    This  will  be  quite  as  true  of  east- 

31 


bound  as  of   west-bound  travel.     It  is  only  as  conditions  come 
back  to  normal,   or  as  they  reach  some  new  basis  of   stability, 
that  this  situation  will  change.     In  the  meantime  the  most  un- 
happy of  men,  the  most  eager  to  find  new  homes,  will  have  to 
possess  their  souls  in  what  patience  they  may. 

"My  judgment  is,"  he  said,  "that  the  situation  will  remain 
much  as  it  is  now  for  the  next  twelve  months,  if  not  for  the 
next  two  years.  The  year  1921  may  see  the  shitting  under  way, 
but  until  that  time  it  is  improbable  that  there  will  be  any  positive 
developments.  In  the  meantime  there  will  be  an  easing-off  in 
this  country.  This  is  alread}-  under  way,  as  a  matter  of  fact.  To 
begin  with,  the  bars  have  been  up  against  the  homegoers  for  the 
past  four  years.  Normally  the  number  that  returns  to  Europe 
from  the  United  States  each  year  is  300,000.  This  means  that 
there  are  now  1,200,000  awaiting  their  chance.  The  uncertainties 
of  war  have  undoubtedly  increased  this  number  very  largely. 
Those  who  came  from  the  subject  lands  of  Austria  and  Hun- 
gary, for  instance,  have  been  shut  off  from  practically  all  com- 
munication with  their  homes  and  their  kin  since  the  war  began. 
Very  naturally  they  are  anxious  to  know  what  has  transpired 
during  these  years  of  silence. 

"Free  Poland  and  free  Bohemia,"  he  said,  "will  call  to  thous- 
ands now  in  this  country.  Russia,  in  spite  of  all  that  has  hap- 
pened there  to  make  it,  as  we  see  it,  anything  but  a  welcoming 
land,  will  call  to  many  more.  It  is  a  curiosity  of  the  Russian 
mind  that  to  so  many  all  that  was  needed  to  make  Russia  ideal 
was  the  removal  of  the  Czar.  He  has  been  removed,  and  Russia 
the  ideal  awaits ! 

"There  must  be  considered  in  addition  the  thousands  who 
have  been  drawing  war-time  wages  for  so  long.  It  has  always 
been  a  factor  in  our  alien  problem  that  a  certain  number  of  those 
who  come  in  may  be  counted  upon  to  go  back  when  they  have 
amassed  a  satisfactory  amount  of  money.  This  number  is 
greater  now  than  ever  before.  This  is  partly  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  homeward  tide  has  been  dammed  up  for  so  long — longer 
than  it  ever  was  before  in  our  history.  It  is  partly  due  to  the 
fact  that  these  people  have  earned  such  wages  as  they  never 
dreamed  of,  even  in  America.  It  is  partly  due  to  the  fact  that 
such  wages  were  earned  by  people  who  never  before  had  the  way 
opened  to  them. 

"The  combination  of  causes  has  resulted  in  a  large  altho  in- 
determinate increase  in  these,  homegoers.  I  have  been  told  ofli- 
cially  that  there  are  three  thousand  Italians  alone  gathered  in 

32 


Xcw  York  irom  other  cities  awaiting  passage  abroad.  One  of 
the  recent  liners  on  which  it  was  possible  to  obtain  steerage  pas- 
sage could  have,  it  is  said,  sold  its  entire  space  three  times  over, 
and  actually  did  carry  a  company  enormously  greater  than  it  had 
ever  before  taken  on  board." 

It  is  possible,  in  Dr.  Howe's  opinion,  that  more  than  the 
usual  number  of  these  homegoers  will  remain  in  Europe,  if  it  is 
possible  for  them  to  do  so.  Among  most  of  them  the  desire  is 
strong  to  buy  a  little  piece  of  land  and  settle  down  upon  it  for 
the  remainder  of  their  lives.  This  land-hunger  is  fed  by  the  ex- 
pectation that  much  land  in  Europe  will  be  nationalized,  says 
the  Commissioner: 

"The  feeling  is  prevalent  that  nationalization  of  the  land  is  to 
be  one  of  the  sure  results  of  this  war.  Even  where  there  is  not 
to  be  nationalization,  the  expectation  is  strong  that  the  great 
estates  will  be  broken  up  so  that  small  holdings  will  become 
available,  either  through  the  necessity  of  the  former  owners  or 
through  governmental  action.  This  is  having  its  influence  on 
hundreds,  if  not  thousands.  No  one  can  say,  of  course,  how 
many  there  are  in  this  country  now  awaiting  a  chance  to  return 
to  Europe,  or  how  many  more  there  may  be  when  travel  becomes 
easy.  With  the  1,200,000  that  may  be  assumed  to  be  ready,  it  is 
perhaps  reasonable  to  believe  that  the  number  is  not  less  than 
2,000,000." 

"But  ever3thing,"  Dr.  Howe  said  again,  "depends  upon  de- 
velopments of  the  next  twelve  months.  If  Europe  finds  the 
means  of  reconstruction  her  men  will  stay  with  her  very  largely, 
for  the  work  that  must  be  done  will  mean  such  heavy  demands 
that  there  will  be  nothing  short  of  a  labor  vacuum.  Her  men  will 
stay  with  her  because,  if  necessary,  they  will  be  kept  there.  So 
far,  hovv^ever,  Europe  has  neither  found  these  means  of  recon- 
struction nor  shown  any  convincing  indications  that  she  can  find 
them.  Her  own  people  seem  to  be  strongly  of  the  opinion  that 
she  can  not,  and  so  they  are  turning  their  eyes  toward  the  United 
States." 

IMMIGRATION  IN  AUGUST,  1919^ 

The  following  table,  prepared  by  the  Bureau  of  Immigration 
of  the  Department  of  Labor,  shows  the  total  number  of  immi- 
grant aliens  admitted  into  the  United  States  in  each  fiscal  year, 

1  MoHthly  Labor  Review.     9:1645-6.      November,    1919. 

33 


I0I5  to  1918,  and  in  August,  i<>i9,  l>y  nationality.     The  total  de- 
partures of  emigrant  aliens  in  August,  1919,  numbered  28,934. 

Classified  by  nationality,  the  number  of  immigrant  aliens  ad- 
mitted into  the  United  States  during  specified  periods  and  in 
August,  1919,  was  as  follows: 

IMMIGRANT    ALIENS    ADMITTED    INTO    THE    UNITED    STATES 
DURING   SPECIFIED  PERIODS   AND   IN   AUGUST,    19 19, 

BY   N.\TIONAHTY. 


Year  ending  June   30 — 
Nationality. 

1915  1916          1917  1918 

African     (black)     5,660  4,576  7,97'  5, 706 

Armenian     932  964  1,221  321 

Bohemian   and  Moravian  1,651  642  327  74 
Bulgarian,    Serbian, 

Montenegrin      3,So6  3.146  i,i34  150 

Chinese     2,469  2,239  1.843  i,576 

Croatian    and    Slovenian  1,912  791  305  33 

Cuban      3.402  3.442  3.428  1,179 

Dalmatian,   Bosnian, 

Hcrzegovinian     305  114  94  15 

Dutch    and    Flemish    .  .  .  6,675  6,433  5,393  2,200 

East    Indian    82  80  69  61 

English     38,662  36,168  32,246  12,980 

Finnish      3.472  5.649  5, 900  1,867 

French      12,636  19,518  24,405  6,840 

German       20,729  11, 555  9,682  1,992 

Greek    15,187  2(),T(i2  25,919  2,002 

Hebrew     26,497  15.108  17.342  3,672 

Irish      23,503  20,636  17,462  4,657 

Italian    (north)     10,660  4,905  3,796  1,074 

Italian    (south)    46,557  33,909  35.154  5,234 

Japanese     8,609  8,711  8,925  10,168 

Korean     146  154  194  149 

Lithuanian      2,638  599  479  135 

Magyar       3,604  981  434  2,^ 

Mexican      10,993  17,198  16,438  17,602 

Pacific    Islander    6  5  10  17 

Polish      9,065  4,502  3,109  668 

Portuguese     4,376  12,208  10,194  2,319 

Roumanian    1,200  053  522  155 

Russian     4,459  4,858  3,711  1,513 

Ruthenian    (Russniak)..  2,933  1,365  1,211  49 

Scandinavian     24,263  19,172  19,596  8,7.11 

Scotch     14.310  13,515  13,350  5,204 

Slovak     2.069  577  244  35 

Spanish     5,705  9.259  15,019  7,909 

Spanish-American      ....  1,667  1,881  2,587  2,231 

Syrian     1,767  676  976  210 

Turkish     273  216  454  24 

Welsh     1,390  983  793  278 

West    Indian 

(except    Cuban)     ....  823  948  1,369  732 

Other    peoples    1,877  3,388  2,097  314 

Total     326,700  298,826  295,403  110,618 


£ 

August 

1919 

1919 

5,823 

663 

282 

49 

105 

19 

205 

40 

1,697 

97 

21 

5 

1,169 

195 

4 

2,735 

468 

68 

5 

26,889 

3,801 

968 

82 

12,598 

2,240 

1,837 

259 

8.3 

148 

3,055 

444 

7.910 

i,o^r^ 

1.236 

424 

2,137 

1,766 

10,056 

616 

77 

I 

160 

57 

52 

8 

28,844 

4,621 

6 

2 

732 

100 

1,574 

184 

89 

23 

1,532 

172 

103 

23 

8,261 

685 

10,364 

1,210 

85 

15 

4,224 

474 

3,092 

399 

231 

53 

iS 

6 

608 

86 

1,223 

69 

247 

33 

141,132    20,597 


34 


THE  MOVEMENT  OF  IMMIGRANT  AND 
EMIGRANT  ALIENS^ 

Owing  to  the  emphasis  which  the  public  press  has  recently 
been  laying  upon  the  return  movement  of  alien  immigrants  to 
their  home  countries,  and  the  unfavorable  effect  of  this  move- 
ment upon  the  labor  situation  in  the  United  States — to  say 
nothing  of  the  enormous  sum-total  of  money  which  the  home- 
going  aliens  are  reported  to  be  taking  with  them — the  recently 
issued  official  figures  of  the  United  States  Immigration  Service, 
of  nico:ning  and  outgoing  immigrant  and  non-immigrant  aliejis 
during  the  month  of  M^'  and  during  the  eleven  months  oi  the 
past  fiscal  year  ended  wdth  May,  possess  unusual  interest.  The 
figures  are  given  in  the  following  table 

Inward — May,    19 19. 

Immigrant  aliens   admitted    15,093 

Non-immigrant  aliens   admitted    1 1,677 

United  States  citizens  arrived   8,949 

Total     35,719 

Year   before    63,973 

Outward — May,    1919. 

Emigrant   aliens   departed    17,800 

Non-emigrant  aliens   departed    9,303 

United  States  citizens  departed   10,883 

Total     37,986 

Year    before    50,458 

Inward — Eleven    Months    Ending  May    31. 

Immigrant  aliens  admitted    123,145 

Non-immigrant   aliens   admitted 82,703 

United  States  citizens  arrived    84,546 

xr  ^°^^}  r 290,394 

Year    before    255,075 

Outward — Eleven  Months  Ending  May   31. 

Emigrant   aliens   departed    08,1  17 

Non-emigrant   aliens    departed    8:;, 785 

United   States   citizens   departed    208,084 

Total    389,016 

Year    before    371,316 

It  W'ill  be  noted  in  this  table  that  the  total  number  of  emigrant 
aliens  that  actually  departed, — i.e.  returned  permanently  to  their 
native  countries,— from  the  United  States  during  the  month  of 
May  was  onh-  17,800,  as  against  15,093  immigrant  aliens  admitted 

^Economic  World,      n.   s.      18:232.      August    16,    19 19. 

35 


to  the  United  States — a  net  loss  of  2,707  aliens  to  the  countiy. 
For  the  eleven  months  ended  May  31  the  total  number  of  de- 
partures of  aliens  returning  to  their  home  countries  was  98,147 
as  contrasted  with  admissions  of  immigrant  aliens  to  the  United 
States  to  the  number  of  123,145 — giving  a  balance  of  immigrant 
aliens  admitted  over  returning  aliens  departed  to  the  number  of 
24,998.  In  comparison  with  the  pre-war  years,  of  course,  this 
net  immigration  of  aliens  into  the  United  States  is  very  small ; 
but  it  is  scarceh-  small  enough  to  justify  the  extreme  deductions 
that  many  have  drawn  from  the  natural  return  movement  to  the 
belligerent  European  countries  especially,  which  has  been  chiefly 
induced  by  the  long  inability  to  visit  parents  and  relatives  and  the 
long  ignorance  of  the  circumstances  which  such  parents  and 
relatives  are  compelled  to  face,  now  that  the  war  is  over. 


THE   RETURN    MOVEMENT   OF   IMMIGRANTS 
TO  THEIR  HOME  COUNTRIES  ' 

That  an  unprecedentedly  extensive  return  movement  of  alien 
immigrants  in  the  United  States  to  their  home  countries  has  been 
under  way  since  shortly  after  the  armistice  was  signed,  and  still 
continues  in  full  flood,  is  a  matter  of  undeniable  fact.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  difficult  to  obtain  as  yet  really  convincing  in- 
formation as  to  the  lengths  to  which  the  movement  will  go. 
Some  official  estimates  on  the  subject  have  been  mnd'^  public,  but 
these  are  after  all  hardly  more  than  guesses.  At  the  same  time, 
the  economic  importance  of  the  migration,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  industry  and  agriculture  of  this  country,  gives  inter- 
est to  all  observations  about  it  coming  from  public  officials  who 
are  in  the  way  of  obtaining  first-hand  data.  In  its  "Economic 
and  Financial  Circular"  for  July,  The  National  City  Bank  of 
New  York  summarizes  the  latest  available  information  of  this 
character,  saying: 

The  return  movement  of  immigrants  is  assuming  large  pro- 
portions, and  is  held  in  check  onl}-  by  want  of  steamer  accom- 
modations. Five  thousand  persons  sailed  from  New  York  for 
Italy  upon  three  steamers  on  one  day  of  last  week  In  the  month 
of  May  the  total  departures  was  26,812,  and  in  June  they  have 
lieen  averaging  1,000  per  day. 

By  the  provisions  of  a  law  passed  last  year  no  alien  or  citi;^en 

^  Economic    World,      n.s.      18:86.      July    19,    19 19. 

36 


is  allowed  to  leave  the  country  without  permission  from  the  State 
Department,  and  they  must  pay  their  income  taxes  i£  they  ow^e 
any.  Over  $r, 000,000  of  these  taxes  have  been  collected  as  a  re- 
sult of  the  enforcement  of  the  law^  Director  Stewart  of  the 
Investigation  and  Inspection  Services  of  the  Department  of 
Labor  states  that  the  number  of  aliens  planning  to  leave  the 
I'nited  States  for  their  own  country'  as  soon  as  conditions  will 
permit,  number  approximately  1,300,000,  and  that  they  will  carry 
with  them  an  average  of  $3,000  cash,  which  would  give  a  grand 
total  of  nearly  $4,000,000,000  to  be  carried  out  of  the  United 
States  by  departing  aliens  during  the  coming  year.  This  is  prob- 
ably an  over-estimate  of  the  average  amount,  if  not  of  the  num- 
ber, but  it  indicates  that  the  movement  is  at  least  of  large  conse- 
quence in  the  exchanges. 

The  statements  made  b}-  Director  Stewart  are  based  upon  in- 
\estigations  made  up  to  June  i,  in  the  sections  where  large  for- 
eign elements  are  found,  notably  the  mining  regions  of  Pennsyl- 
Aania,  the  steel  district  of  Illinois  and  Pennsylvania,  the  manu- 
facturing district  of  New  England  and  the  great  cities,  notably 
New  York  and  Chicago.  He  estimates  that  35  per  cent  of  the 
Russians  are  seeking  to  return  to  their  countr}',  34  per  cent  of  the 
Slovaks,  28  per  cent  of  the  Austro-Hungarians,  22  per  cent  of  the 
Croatians,  15  per  cent  of  the  Poles  and  11  per  cent  of  the  Italians- 
and  Greeks.  These  aliens  seeking  to  return  to  their  native  coun- 
try are  actuated  in  part  b}^  a  desire  to  find  and  aid  lost  friends 
and  relatives,  also  in  the  belief  that  they  will  find  land  cheaper 
than  formerl}-,  and  that  they  will  also  find  emplo^^ment  in  re- 
establishing industries. 


SUSPEND    IMMIGRATION?     WHAT    OF 

INDUSTRY  ? ' 

EMPLOYERS  and  civic  bodies  are  likely  to  be  heard  on  the 
subject  of  suspending  immigration  when  the  house  committee  on 
immigration  begins  consideration  of  the  bills  now  pending. 
Local  chambers  of  commerce  have  been  making  surveys  and 
forwarding  data  to  the  Chamber  of  -Commerce  of  the  United 
States.  That  body  has  not  taken  action  in  regard  to  any  of  the 
bills  introduced  in  the  house,  but  it  is  understood  that  the  con- 
sensus of   opinion   among  the   members    is   that   the    legislation 

^  By  A.  J.  Hain.  Iron  Trade  Review.  65:757-63.  September  18, 
1919. 

37 


should  be  limited  to  the  exclusion  of  undesirables.  This  opinion, 
it  is  said,  is  not  based  on  any  selfish  grounds  and  does  not  pro- 
ceed from  any  purpose  to  antagonize  the  American  Federation 
of  Labor,  \vhich  is  seeking  to  erect  a  barrier  against  foreign  labor, 
but  is  based  on  the  conclusion  that  if  we  are  to  increase  our  in- 
dustrial operations  we  must  have  more  men  with  which  to  do  so 
and  that  it  is  contrary  to  American  principles  to  shut  out  the 
honest  law-abiding  alien  who  seeks  to  establish  his  home  in  this 
country. 

The  National  Federation  ol  Construction  Industries,  Phila- 
delphia, is  now  taking  a  poll  of  its  members  to  determine  their 
attitude  on  the  question.  The  questions  set  forth  on  its  l)allots 
are : 

Do  you  believe  that  the  present  immigration  laws,  as  amended 
at  the  last  session  of  Congress,  with  provisions  for  stringent  lit- 
eracy tests,  ought  to  be  given  an  opportunity  for  trial  before 
further  legislation  is  enacted? 

Do  you  feel  that  with  the  marked  emigration  of  labor,  which 
has  been  going  on  during  the  past  few  months,  it  would  be  de- 
sirable to  amend  existing  legislation  to  eliminate,  or  make  less 
stringent,   literacy  tests? 

Do  you  feel  that  it  would  be  desirable  for  legislation  to  be 
enacted  which  would  stop  all  immigration  for  a  period  of  three 
or  four  years? 

Are  you  now  experiencing  a  labor  shortage,  either  skilled  or 
unskilled? 

Do  you  expect  that  you  will  have  a  shortage  of  labor  in  the 
near  future? 

Compromise  Measure  Submitted 

The  last  bill  introduced  in  the  house,  Aur.  20,  by  Representa- 
tive Johnson,  of  Washington,  chairman  of  the  House  Committee 
on  immigration,  was  prepared  as  a  compromise,  to  represent  the 
composite  views  of  the  members  of  the  committee.  It  bars  for 
two  years  all  aliens  except  travelers,  students,  professional  men, 
skilled  labor  and  aliens  who  departed  to  aid  the  allies.  Those 
who  are  admitted  must  make  affidavits  and  procure  passports. 
After  the  termination  of  the  period  of  suspension  an  alien  will 
be  admitted  when  he  has  sworn  to  a  statement : 

That  he  is  coming  to  the  United  States  for  the  bona  fide  pur- 
pose of  becoming  a  citizen. 

That  at  the  earliest  possible  moment  he  will  learn  the  English 
language  and  become  acciuaintcd  with   the   form  of  government 

38 


and  the  iustilulious  oT  this  country,  and  that  he  will  obey  the 
laws. 

That  he  will  register  once  each  year  until  he  becomes  a  citizen 
with  the  county  clerk  of  the  county  wherein  he  may  reside,  or 
with  an  immigration  officer  designated. 

That  he  understands  and  agrees  that  he  may  be  deported  for 
failure  to  register  or  to  take  the  necessary  steps  to  become  a  citi- 
zen of  the  United  States. 

An  alien  will  not  be  entitled  to  citizenship  unless  he  has  con- 
tinuously resided  in  the  United  States  five  years.  If  within  one 
year  from  the  date  when  he  is  first  entitled  to  the  privilege  he 
fails  to  become  a  citizen  he  will  be  deported.  An  alien  who  fails 
to  register  is  also  subject  to  deportation. 

On  May  19,  Representative  Johnson  introduced  his  original 
bill  to  suspend  immigration  for  two  years  and  to  deport  "any 
alien  who  believes  in,  practices,  advocates,  teaches,  sanctions,  or 
encourages  the  extortion  of  mone}^  or  property  or  avenging 
grievances  through  threats  of  bodily  injury  or  injury  to  property, 
or  is  a  member  affiliated  with  any  organization  that  so  prac- 
tices .  .  ." 

Would  Require  Registration 

This  bill  proposed  that  v.ithin  one  month  after  it  became 
effective  all  aliens  be  compelled  to  register.  They  would  be  re- 
quired to  register  thereafter  semiannualh"  and  renew  their  cer- 
tificates of  identification  for  four  3'ears.  It  v.as  proposed  to 
charge  a  fee  for  registration  and  the  issuing  of  certificates,  the 
fees  to  be  reduced  as  the  registrant  submitted  proof  of  his  abilit}' 
to  read  and  write  the  English  language  and  the  acquirement  of 
a  "fair  knowledge"  of  the  American  form  of  government.  No 
fee  would  be  charged  after  the  alien  became  naturalized.  The 
bill  also  provided  for  the  provisional  admission  under  bond  o\ 
certain  aliens  whose  records  the  government  might  desire  to  in- 
vestigate. 

Proposes  to  Limit  Iniinigration 

A  bill  was  introduced  by  Representative  Dillingham,  Aug.  15, 
limiting  the  admission  of  aliens  to  5  per  cent  of  the  number  of 
their  nationality  already  resident  in  the  United  States. 

Representatives  Raker  and  Lufkin  introduced  bills  proposing 
to  suspend  immigration  for  four  years,  and  Representative  Har- 
rison submitted  a  bill  increasing  this  to  five  years.  Other  bills 
have  been  introduced  to  deport  those  aliens  who  proved  disloyal 

39 


to  the  United  States  during  the  war,  or  who  refused  to  fight  for 
the  United  States  on  the  ground  of  noncitizenship. 

From  the  number  of  bills  introduced  it  is  evident  that  the 
United  States  is  going  to  be  more  particular  in  the  future  as  to 
what  goes  into  the  "melting  pot."  The  literacy  test,  it  is  said, 
has  not  safeguarded  the  interests  of  the  United  States  as  fully  as 
present  demands  require.  The  drawback  to  that  legislation  is 
that  it  has  served  to  keep  industrious  men  out  of  the  country 
while  offering  no  barrier  to  those  of  limited  intelligence  Init  in- 
finite capacity  for  doing  wrong. 

So  far  as  concerns  the  suspension  of  immigration,  President 
Wilson  has  not  expressed  himself  to  Congress,  but  he  has  most 
emphatically  declared  in  favor  of  continuing  war-time  restric- 
tions against  the  admission  of  aliens  with  evil  purposes.  The 
exclusion  of  the  criminal  classes  has  been  adopted  as  a  national 
policy,  but  on  the  question  of  suspending  all  immigration  there 
is  much  difference  of  opinion. 

"Two  versions  of  the  immigration  situation  have  been  pre- 
sented to  our  committee,"  says  Representative  Knutson,  Republ- 
ican whip,  and  a  member  of  the  immigration  committee. 

"One  was  that  European  countries,  especially  those  in  which 
fighting  took  place,  will  need  the  service  of  every  able-bodied 
man  in  the  task  of  rehabilitating  the  devastated  regions.  This 
demand  should  create  working  conditions  and  such  attractive 
wages  as  to  induce  the  workers  to  remain  in  their  native  lands. 

"The  second  theory  was  that  because  of  unsatisfactory  living 
conditions  in  Europe  there  will  be  a  tremendous  exodus  as  soon 
as  transportation  facilities  make  it  possible. 

"Commissioner  Howe  originally  took  the  first  view  of  the 
situation.  According  to  some  of  his  more  recent  articles,  how- 
ever, he  has  revised  his  opinion  and  now  expects  to  see  our  immi- 
gration stations  jammed  with  applicants  unless  Congress  decides 
to  impose  restrictions. 

"As  to  the  attitude  of  our  committee,  the  majority  members 
take  the  view  that  it  is  up  to  us  to  report  out  legislation  that  will 
prevent  a  glutting  of  the  American  labor  market.  I  think  a 
temporary  period  of  suspension  of  immigration  will  be  the  in- 
evitable result.     This  period  may  be  fixed  at  two  to  four  years." 

A  double  barrier  may  be  erected  against  the  Europeans  who 
may  wish  to  come  to  the  United  States.  England,  France,  Italy 
and  Germany  have  taken  measures  to  keep  their  workmen  home. 
Laws,  either  proposed  or  in  process  of  enactment,  have  been  sup- 
plemented with  associations  to  procure  work  and  induce  men  to 

40 


rciiaain.  In  Ma}-  tliere  was  started  in  Germany  the  ReicliastelU 
fur  deutsche  Answandrung  und  Ruckwanderuny  to  work  for  the 
return  of  Germans  now  in  other  countries.  All  of  these  efforts 
combined  with  the  increasing  amount  of  work  provided  in  for- 
eign countries  will  have  some  effect  in  limiting  immigration  at 
least  within  the  next  few  years,  regardless  of  what  action  Con- 
gress may  take. 


CANADA  TO  RESTRICT  IMMIGRATION ' 

The  old  open-door  policy  in  regard  to  immigration  which  has 
hitherto  prevailed  in  the  Dominion  of  Canada  is  now  a  thing  of 
the  past.  The  amendment  to  the  Immigration  Act,  which  was 
passed  at  the  recent  session  of  the  Canadian  House  of  Commons, 
provides  the  machinery  for  effectually  putting  up  the  bars  against 
undesirable  immigrants  to  the  Dominion,  and  this  legislation  will 
go  into  effect  before  the  end  of  the  year. 

The  nine  important  changes  in  the  immigration  policy  provide 
for: 

(i)  Extension  of  the  prohibitant  clauses  to  all,  including 
Britishers— to  exclude  those  suffering  from  diseases  or  bad  hab- 
its, criminalism,  folk  of  low  mentality,  etc. 

(2)  To  establish  such  machinery  as  will  see  this  exclusion 
ciTiciently  and  sufficiently  applied. 

(3)  To  extend  the  time  for  deporting  aliens,  if  found  to  be 
undesirable,  from  three  to  five  years. 

(4)  Greater  responsibility  in  connection  with  the  transporta- 
tion of  immigrants  and  increased  penalties  for  not  giving  these 
facilities. 

(5)  The  barring  of  all  skilled  and  unskilled  labor  from  Asia. 

(6)  To  admit  only  such  people  as  can  be  readily  absorbed 
and  assimilated. 

(7)  To  secure  farmers  with  some  capital  and  farm  help, 
male  and  female. 

(.8)     To  secure  later  settlers  from  among  Imperial  soldiers. 

(9)  To  abolish,  possibl}',  the  head  tax  on  Chinese  and  enter 
ir.to  an  agreement  with  the  Chinese  Government  to  admit  only 
limited  numbers. 

The  announced  policy  of  the  government  has  been  heartily 
approved  by  organized  labor  and  the  Great  War  Veterans,  who 

1  By  Owen  E.  McGillicuddy.  Review  of  Reviews.  60:196.  August, 
1919. 

41 


contend  that  wliile  the  financial,  transportation,  and  industrial 
problems  demand  an  increase  in  population,  the  government 
should  protect  the  welfare  of  the  countr}-  and  the  future  gen- 
erations b}-  making  the  present  laws  more  stringent. 


TO  CLAP  THE  LID  ON  TLIE  MELTIXG-POT  ' 

The  most  elaborate  and  most  widely  discust  plan  lor  regula- 
ting immigration  is  that  sponsored  by  the  National  Committee 
for  Constructive  Immigration  Legislation  and  advocated  by  Dr. 
Sidney  L.  Gulick  l)erorc  the  House  Committee  on  Immigration. 
The  Manchester  Union,  Boston  Transcript,  Springfield  Republi- 
can, Indianapolis  News,  and  St.  Louis  Glohe-Dcmocrat  all  find 
something  to  commend  in  the  Gulick  plan  and  prefer  it  to  the 
Hat  exclusion  idea,  but  do  not  venture  to  guarantee  its  complete 
practicability.  The  chief  points  in  the  plan  have  been  sum- 
marized in  the  newspapers  as  follows : 

"i.  The  complete  suspension  of  all  labor  immigration  for  a 
])criod  of  two  years  or  longer. 

"2.  The  regulation  of  all  immigration  thereafter  on  a  per- 
centage principle,  with  the  application  of  this  principle  to  each 
people  or  mother-tongue  group  separately,  but  impartially. 

"3.  The  annual  admission  of  from  5  to  15  per  cent,  (or  3  to 
10  per  cent.)  of  those  of  each  people  already  naturalized,  in- 
cluding the  American-born  children  of  that  people  as  recorded  in 
the  1920  census. 

"4.     The  creation  of  an  immigration  commission  to  determine 

aniuially  the  rate  within  the  specified  limits,  with  power  to  admit 

or  exclude  labor  under  exceptional  circumstances,  to   formulate 

plans  for  the  distribution  of  immigration,  and  to  deal  witli  other 

specified   and   exceptional    matters  of   importance,   including  the 

formulation  of  educational  standards  for  naturalization. 

"5.     The  sending  of  examining  immigration  oflicers  to  ports 
from  A\hich  immigrants  largely  sail. 

"6.  The  raising  of  standards  of  qualifications  for  citizenship 
and  the  extension  of  the  privileges  of  naturalization  to  every 
one  who  qualifies. 

"7-     The   separation   of  the  citizenship  of  a  wife   from   her 
husband. 

1  Literary    Digest.      62:28-9.     July    5,     iQig. 

42 


"8.  The  repeal  ol  all  laws  dealing  specifically  and  differ- 
cnliall}'  with  the  Chinese." 

The  Spring-field  Republican  points  out  that  under  this  plan — 

"Restriction  would  be  particularly  rigid  against  immigration 
from  south,  central  and  east  Europe.  The  maximum  permissible 
immigration  during  a  year  under  the  proposed  plan  would  be 
approximately  95,000  from  Italy,  compared  with  285,000  in  1914 
and  265,000  in  1913 ;  from  what  was  Austria-Hungary,  132,000, 
compared  with  278,000  and  254,000;  from  Russia,  125,000,  com- 
pared with  255,000  in  1914;  and  from  Japan,  2,481,  compared 
with   10,213  in   1918." 

In  an  article  in  last  week's  Annalist  (New  York)  Dr.  Gulick 
asserts  that  his  plan  "will  reduce  the  evils  and  dangers  of  Japa- 
nese immigration  more  effectively  than  does  the  present  method 
of  dealing  v.dth  Japanese  immigration."     But,  he  continues: 

"The  immediate  and  outstanding  advantage  of  the  proposed 
percentage  law  arises  from  the  way  in  which  it  enables  us  to 
regulate  immigration  from  Europe. 

"In  place  of  the  free  immigration  now  permitted — 20,000,000 
might  conceivabh'  come  to  our  shores  in  the  next  five  years — this 
plan  sets  up  a  flexible  standard  which  will  admit  only  so  many 
as  w^e  can  hope  to  Americanize  and  employ.  .  .  . 

"These  advantages  are  of  paramount  importance.  And  they 
Y,  ill  all  be  gained  without  race  discrimination,  East  or  West,  and 
on  ?.  basis  equally  fair  and  friendlj'  to  all." 

The  plan  thus  defended  by  Dr.  Gulick,  who  is  an  authority 
on,  and  a  long  time  resident  of,  the  Far  East,  finds  its  severest 
critics  on  the  Pacific  coast.  The  Spokane  Spokesman-Review 
considers  the  proposal  to  naturalize  Chinese,  Japanese,  and  sim- 
ilar aliens  already  here  thoroughly  "objectionable."  Victor  S. 
McClatch}-,  editor  of  the  Sacramento  Bee,  denounces  the  Gulick 
plan  as  Japanese  propaganda  and  an  attempt  to  secure  for  the 
J apanese  what  v\as  denied  them  by  the  Paris  Conference. 


T  1 


TO  HALT  IMMIGRATION 

The  passage  of  such  an  anti-immigration  measure  as  is  now 
before  Congress  is  demanded  by  such  representative  newspapers 
as  the  Boston  Christian  Science  Monitor,  the  Philadelphia  In- 
quirer, Grand  Rapids  Herald,  St.  Louis  Republic,  and  Seattle 
Post-Intelligencer.     The  St.  Louis  paper's  support  of  a  drastic 

1  Literary    Digest.      60:17-18.      February    8,    1919. 

43 


liniitrttion  on  immigration  for  the  next  few  years  is  based  upon 
its  firm  convictjon  that  "Bolshevik  fanatics  should  by  aH  means 
be  kept  out."  A  citizen  of  Baltimore  xvrites  to  The  Sun  of  that 
city  to  say  that  in  the  tirst  place  "me  total  restriction  of  immi- 
gration would  go  a  long  way  toward  settling  the  question  of 
giving  our  overseas  boys  employment."     But,  he  adds, 

*'\Ve  could  go  still  further  and  clinch  the  problem  by  deport- 
ing every  German,  pro-German,  conscientious  objector,  Bolshe- 
vik, Industrial  Worker  of  the  World,  and  other  disturbing  ele- 
ments out  of  our  land.  These  elements  have  no  use  for  America, 
except  to  live  off  the  fat  of  the  land,  exploit  themselves  and 
their  accursed  doctrine,  and  strive  to  force  them  on  a  long- 
suffering  people." 

The  Sun  says  editorially  that  not  only  should  we  keep  out 
immigrants  of  the  type  just  mentioned,  but  we  should  also  "make 
certain  that  no  interned  aliens  are  allowed  to  remain,  and  that 
every  alien  now  in  jail  for  disloyalty  shall  be  deported  after  his 
sentence  expires" ;  and  this  "ought  to  include  naturalized  dis- 
loyalists like  Berger,  whose  citizenship  should  be  revoked." 

But  some  object  that  a  labor  shortage  may  result  from  the 
proposed  halt  in  the  westward  march  of  population.  Attention 
is  called  by  the  Syracuse  Post-Standard  to  the  decline  in  immi- 
gration during  the  war.  From  1,218,480  in  1914  it  dropt  to 
300,000  in  191 7  and  110,000  in  1918.  The  Post-Standard  dis- 
agrees with  labor  leaders  when  it  says  that  "with  all  that  needs 
to  be  done  after  these  years  of  delayed  enterprise  there  should 
be  places  for  all  those  w^ho  return  from  the  war,  and  for  a  larger 
number  of  immigrants  than  we  have  been  getting  besides." 

A  Pennsylvania  Congressman  reports  that  coal  operators  and 
manufacturers  in  his  State  fear  there  will  be  an  inadequate  sup- 
ply of  the  kind  of  labor  they  need  if  immigration  is  cut  off.  In 
Europe,  according  to  some  of  the  dispatches,  the  proposal  for 
prohibiting  immigration  to  the  United  States  for  the  next  few 
}ears  is  far  from  popular.  Mr.  George  Nicoll  Barnes,  labor 
representative  on  the  British  peace  delegation,  says  European 
labor  would  be  strongly  opposed  to  such  a  law.  There  have  been 
reports  that  there  are  serious  objections  in  Italy  to  any  restric- 
tion on  the  entrance  of  Italians  into  the  United  States.  But  ac- 
cording to  the  New  York  Evening  Post,  Italy,  as  w-ell  as  other 
countries  in  Europe,  has  an  industrial  program  intended  to  re- 
move the  cause  for  emigration  "by  giving  her  workers  what 
ihcy  formerly  sought  in  America — good  wages  and  decent  living 
conditions." 


44 


AFFIRMATIVE  DISCUSSION 

THE   VANISHING  AMERICAN  WAGE-EARNER'' 

The  native  American  wage-earner  is  rapidly  disappearing. 
Along  with  him  have  also  gone  his  working  companions  of  for- 
mer years,  the  English,  Irish,  Scotch,  Swedes,  Norwegians,  and 
Germans.  In  their  places  have  appeared  the  representatives  of 
almost  two  score  alien  races  from  the  south  and  east  of  Europe, 
and  the  Orient.  Onl}'  one  fifth  of  the  workers  in  our  mines  and 
manufacturing  plants  to-day  are  native  Americans.  About  one 
tenth  of  our  wage-earners  are  the  native-born  children  of  parents 
from  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  Germany,  and  the  Scandinavian 
countries.  More  than  three  fifths  of  our  great  body  of  industrial 
workers  are  southern  or  eastern  Europeans. 

There  is  scarcely  a  cit}'  or  town  of  any  industrial  importance 
east  of  the  Mississippi,  and  north  of  the  Ohio  and  Potomac  riv- 
ers, which  has  not  its  immigrant  colony,  composed  of  members  of 
the  Italian,  Magyar,  and  Slavic  races.  Practically  the  same  sit- 
uation exists  in  the  mining  states  of  the  West.  The  Pacific  coast, 
in  addition  to  its  Chinese,  Japanese,  and  Hindoos,  has  also  re- 
ceived its  contingent  of  southern  and  eastern  Europeans.  \\  her- 
ever  there  has  been  any  industrial  development — in  the  coal 
mines  of  Kansas  and  Oklahoma,  the  iron-ore  mines  of  the  Mesabi 
and  Vermilion  ranges  of  Minnesota,  the  furnaces  and  mills  at 
Pueblo,  Colorado,  and  Birmingham,  Alabama,  the  packing-houses 
in  Kansas  City,  South  Omaha,  and  Fort  Worth,  the  copper 
mines  of  Tennessee,  the  coal  mines  of  ^'irginia,  as  well  as  in 
the  mines  and  mills  of  the  East — the  Slav,  the  Hungarian,  and  the 
Italian  have  found  a  lodgment  in  the  operating  forces.  As  a 
rule,  the  extent  of  their  employment  decreases  as  industr}-  moves 
westward,  but  even  in  the  West  these  races  are  rapidl}'  becom- 
ing predominant  among  the  industrial  workers.  Their  status  is 
also  not  confined  to  the  substratum  of  unskilled  workmen,  but 
they  are   found  in  all  grades  of  the  industrial   scale, — with  the 

1  By  W.  Jett  Lauck.  In  Atlantic  Monthly.  110:691-6.  November, 
1912. 

45 


exception  of  the  executive  and  the  technical  positions, — from 
the  highest  to  the  lowest  occupations.  A  brief  review  of  several 
basic  industries  will  forcibl}-  disclose  the  real  significance  of  the 
recent  racial  substitutions  in  our  mines  and  manufacturing 
establishments. 


II 

Only  one  fourth  of  the  iron  and  steel  workers  of  to-day  are 
native  Americans,  and  only  one  eighth  are  the  descendants  of  the 
older  skilled  immigrant  employees,  who  received  their  training 
in  the  mills  and  furnaces  of  Great  Britain  and  Germany.  Prac- 
tically all  of  these  are  in  the  more  responsible  executive  and 
technical  occupations.  The  superintendents  of  our  iron  and  steel 
manufacturing  plants  are  unable  to  persuade  the  native  Amer- 
icans to  enter  the  industry',  and  are  wondering  whom  they  will 
get  to  take  the  places  of  the  foreman  and  skilled  workers  of  the 
present  generation.  Three  fifths  of  the  employees  of  our  furn- 
aces and  steel  mills  are  of  foreign  birth.  Two  thirds  of  these 
immigrant  workmen  are  southern  and  eastern  Europeans  of  re- 
cent arrival  in  the  United  States.  Polish,  Magyar,  and  Slovak 
iron  and  steel  workers,  combined,  equal  in  number  the  native 
Americans  in  the  industry;  and  the  North  and  South  Italians, 
Pithuanians,  Russians,  and  Croatians  together  outnumber  the 
English,  Irish,  Scotch,  and  Germans.  The  operating  forces  of 
the  industry  until  tv.enty  3^ears  ago  were  exclusively  composed 
of  native  Americans  and  older  immigrants  from  Great  Britain 
and  Northern  Europe.  In  the  decade  1890- 1900,  southern  and 
eastern  Europeans  found  employment  in  the  mills  and  furnaces, 
and  the  pressure  of  their  competition  has  gradually  driven  out 
the  members  of  races  at  first  employed. 

The  displacement  of  the  native  American  miner  has  been  even 
more  sudden  and  widespread  than  that  of  the  iron  and  steel 
worker.  Only  one  fifth  of  our  bituminous  coal  miners  are  native 
Americans,  and  less  than  one  tenth  are  of  native  birth  and  for- 
eign parentage,  the  children,  that  is  to  say,  of  British  and  north- 
ern European  immigrants.  More  than  sixty  per  cent  are  foreign 
born.  Three  fourths  of  the  immigrant  employees  are  from  the 
south  and  east  of  Europe,  and  among  these  the  Italians,  Poles, 
Slovaks,  Croatians,  and  Lithuanians  are  numerically  predom- 
inant. 

The  low-paid  and  unskilled  southern  and  eastern  European 

46 


immigrants  were  first  employed  in  the  western  Pennsylvania 
mines.  With  their  advent,  native  workers  and  northern  and 
western  European  employees  were  gradually  displaced.  Some 
went  to  the  mining  localities  in  the  Middle  West  and  Southwest, 
and  some  left  the  industry  entirely  to  engage  in  other  occupa- 
tions. The  native  American  and  older  immigrants,  who  remained 
in  the  Pennsylvania  mines,  were  those  who  held  or  were  ad- 
vanced to  more  responsible  positions,  and  the  few  who  were  left 
in  the  unskilled  occupations  were  usually  the  inert  and  the  un- 
progressive.  The  recent  immigrants,  after  inundating  western 
Pennsylvania,  moved  on  to  the  Middle  W  est,  and  the  American 
miners  and  those  of  British  extraction  in  Ohio,  Indiana,  and 
Illinois,  are  being  steadily  displaced  by  them.  As  in  the  case  of 
the  Pennsjdvania  mines,  the  older  immigrants  are  leaving  the 
industry  or  moving  to  the  coal  fields  of  Kansas,  Oklahoma,  and 
Colorado,  where  the  competition  of  the  southern  and  eastern 
European  is  less  keenly  felt. 

Practically  the  same  conditions  with  the  same  results  have 
been  brought  about  b}'  the  entrance  of  the  southern  and  eastern 
European  into  the  anthracite  mines.  The  American  and  older 
immigrants,  originally  employed,  have  left  the  industr}',  or  have 
migrated  to  the  western  coal  and  metalliferous  mining  fields,  and 
those  who  .remain  are  chiefly  in  the  supervisory  and  responsible 
positions. 

The  recent  immigrant  industrial  invasion  has  also  extended  to 
the  iron-ore  and  copper  mines.  The  great  majority  of  iron-ore 
workers  in  the  Birmingham  district  in  Alabama  are  Negroes,  the 
tide  of  recent  immigration  to  the  Southern  States  thus  far  having 
been  very  small.  On  the  iron-ore  ranges  of  Michigan  and  Min- 
nesota, however,  only  about  one  eighth  of  the  employees  are 
native  Americans.  Three  fourths  are  of  foreign  birth,  the  prin- 
cipal races  represented  being  the  Croatians,  Finns,  North  and 
South  Italians,  Poles,  Slovaks,  Slovenians, ^  and  Swedes.  In  the 
copper  mines  of  Alichigan  and  Tennessee  the  same  preponder- 
ance of  foreign-born  employees  exists.  About  one  fifth  of  the 
workers  in  the  copper  mines  are  native  Americans,  and  about 
one  eighth  were  born  in  America ;  but  their  parents  were  born 
abroad.  The  great  majority  are  Croatians,  Finns,  Poles,  North 
Italians,  Slovenians,  and  English.  The  Finns  and  the  English 
were  the  orginal  copper-mine  workers,  but  they  have  been,  and 

1  A  people  of  south-western  Hungary,  related  to  the  Croatians  as  the 
Slovaks  are  to  the  Bohemians.  In  the  rate  of  immigration  the  Slovaks 
lead;  next  come  the  Hebrews,  while  the  Slovenians  rank  third. — Tuf. 
Editors. 

47 


are  gradually  being,  displaced  by  the  southern  and  eastern  Euro- 
peans. 

With  the  exception  of  a  few  Italians  in  the  mills  in  New 
Orleans,  there  are  no  foreign-born  textile  operatives  in  the 
Southern  States.  The  immense  labor  force  called  into  existence 
by  the  demand  for  labor  growing  out  of  the  extraordinary  devel- 
opment of  cotton-goods  manufacturing  in  the  South  has  been 
recruited  from  the  native-born  agricultural  classes  and  moun- 
taineers of  that  section.  In  New  England,  however,  the  situation 
is  entirely  different.  There  is  scarcely  a  race  from  the  south 
and  east  of  Europe  or  the  Orient  which  does  not  have  its  repre- 
sentatives among  the  employees  of  cotton,  woolen,  worsted,  silk, 
hosiery,  and  knit-goods  mills. 

When  the  cotton  mills  were  first  started  in  New  England, 
the  looms  and  spindles  were  tended  by  the  sons  and  daughters 
of  the  farmers  who  lived  in  the  surrounding  country.  As  the 
industry  expanded,  skilled  and  experienced  operatives  were  at- 
tracted from  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland.  After  1850  the 
French-Canadians  came  in  large  numbers  in  response  to  the 
growing  demand  for  operatives.  These  sources  of  labor-supply 
continued  until  1890,  when  southern  and  eastern  Europeans  began 
to  find  employment  in  the  mills.  As  their  employment  became 
more  extensive,  the  immigration  of  English,  Irish,  Scotch,  and 
French-Canadians  declined,  and  during  the  past  decade  has  prac- 
tically ceased.  Not  only  has  this  class  of  work-people  stopped 
entering  the  mills,  but  those  already  employed  have  sought  work 
elsewhere,  and  the  southern  and  eastern  European  employees  are 
now  predominant. 

The  same  condition  of  affairs  prevails  in  the  other  branches 
of  the  textile  industries, — woolen,  worsted,  silk,  carpet,  hosiery, 
and  knit-goods  manufacturing, — as  in  the  cotton  mills.  The  na- 
tive Americans  and  older  immigrant  employees  have  been  super- 
seded by  foreign-l)orn  operatives  of  recent  arrival  in  the  United 
States. 

At  the  present  time,  the  native  Americans  in  the  New  Eng- 
land cotton  mills  scarcely  make  up  one  tenth  of  the  total  number 
of  operatives  employed.  The  proportion  of  native  Americans  in 
other  branches  of  textile  manufacturing,  as  compared  with  cotton 
goods,  is  slightly  larger,  but  even  then  is  exceedingly  small.  Only 
one  seventh  of  the  employees  of  our  woolen  and  worsted  mills 
and  silk-dyeing  establishments,  and  only  one  fifth  of  those  in  our 
silk  mills  and  carpet  factories,  are  of  native  birth,  and  of  native 
fathers.     About   one   operative   out   of   each    three    workers    in 

48 


hosiery  and  knit-goods  establishments  is  a  native  American. 
Three  out  of  every  five  operatives  of  cotton,  \\oolen,  worsted, 
and  carpet  mills  are  of  foreign  birth,  and  two  out  of  three  of 
these  foreign-born  wage-earners  are  of  recent  arrival  from 
southern  and  eastern  Europe  and  the  Orient.  Three  out  of  every 
four  operatives  of  dyeing  establishments  for  silk  goods  are  aliens. 

The  Poles,  Greeks,  Italians,  Portuguese,  and  Lithuanians  are 
the  predominant  races  of  recent  immigration  employed  in  our 
cotton,  woolen,  and  worsted  mills.  In  the  spinning,  weaving  and 
dj-eing  of  silk  goods  and  carpets,  and  in  the  manufacture  of 
hosiery  and  underwear,  the  North  and  South  Italians,  Mag}'ars, 
and  Poles  are  the  leading  races  of  recent  arrival  in  the  United 
States  among  the  employees.  Among  the  immigrants  in  all  of 
these  industries  are  also  to  be  found  considerable  numbers  of 
skilled  operatives  from  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland,  and  from 
German}-.  The  French-Canadians  form  an  important  proportion, 
especially  among  the  cotton  and  woolen  mill  operatives. 

Such  are  the  racial  elements  in  the  operating  forces  of  our 
basic  industries.  Furthermore,  this  situation  is  tj-pical  of  all  the 
less  important  divisions  of  industry.  The  United  States  Immi- 
gration Commission  included  within  the  scope  of  its  exhaustive 
investigations  in  all  parts  of  the  country  more  than  forty  of  the 
leading  branches  of  mining  and  manufacturing.  Everywhere — 
in  the  manufacture  of  agricultural  implements,  cigars  and  to- 
bacco, boots  and  shoes,  clothing,  furniture,  glass,  gloves,  leather, 
petroleum,  collars  and  cuffs,  electrical  supplies,  machinery',  loco- 
motives, and  a  score  of  other  industries — the  same  condition  of 
affairs  was  found  to  exist.  The  native  American  occupied  nu- 
mericall}'  a  subordinate  position  among  the  wage-earners  and, 
along  with  the  representatives  of  older  immigrant  races  from 
Great  Britain,  was  being  rapidly  displaced  by  southern  and 
eastern  European  employees,  who  had  been  securing  employ- 
ment in  all  kinds  of  mines  and  manufacturing  establishments. 

Ill 

The  southern  and  eastern  European  immigrant  who  has  so 
extensively  found  emplo\'ment  in  our  mines  and  factories  has 
had  no  industrial  training  abroad.  He  has  also  brought  with 
him  a  low  standard  of  living,  and  has  been  tractable  and  sub- 
servient. As  a  result,  his  competition  has  exposed  the  native 
American  and  older  immigrant  employees  to  unsafe  or  unsan- 

49 


itaiy  working  conditions,  and  has  led  to  or  continued  the  im- 
position of  conditions  of  employments  which  the  Americans  and 
older  immigrants  have  considered  unsatisfactory  and,  in  many 
cases,  unbearable.  Where  the  older  employees  have  found  un- 
safe or  unsanitary  working  conditions  prevailing,  and  have  pro- 
tested, the  recent  immigrant  wage-earners,  usually  through 
ignorance  of  mining  or  other  working  methods,  have  manifested 
a  willingness  to  accept  the  alleged  unsatisfactory  working  condi- 
tions. 

The  southern  and  eastern  European  also,  because  of  his  tract- 
ability,  necessitous  condition,  and  low  standards,  has  been  in- 
clined, as  a  rule,  to  acquiesce  in  the  demand  on  the  part  of  the 
employers  for  extra  work  or  longer  hours.  The  industrial  work- 
ers have  also  accepted  without  protest  the  system  of  so-called 
compan}'  stores  and  houses,  W'hich  prevails  extensively  in  bitu- 
minous and  anthracite  coal,  iron-ore,  and  copper  mining,  and 
other  industrial  localities. 

The  presence  of  the  recent  immigrant  industrial  worker  has 
also  brought  about  living  conditions  or  a  standard  of  life  with 
which  the  native  American  and  older  immigrant  employees  have 
been  unwilling,  or  have  found  it  extremely  difficult,  to  compete. 
The  southern  and  eastern  European  wage-earner  is  usually  single, 
or,  if  married,  has  left  his  wdfe  and  children  abroad.  He  has  no 
permanent  interest  in  the  community  in  which  he  lives  or  the 
industry  in  wdiich  he  is  employed.  His  main  purpose  is  to  live 
as  cheaply  as  possible,  and  to  save  as  much  as  he  can.  Conse- 
quently, he  has  adopted  a  group  method  of  living  known  as  the 
"boarding-boss"  system.  Under  this  plan,  from  eight  to  twenty 
men  usually  crowd  together  in  a  small  apartment  or  house  in 
order  to  reduce  the  per  capita  outlay  for  rent,  and  buy  their  own 
food  and  do  their  own  cooking.  The  total  cost  of  living  ranges 
from  eight  to  fifteen  dollars  per  month  for  each  member  of  the 
group.  The  impossibility  of  competition  hy  the  native  American 
with  such  standards  of  living  needs  no  discussion. 

In  addition  to  these  conditions,  brought  about  by  the  influx 
of  southern  and  eastern  European  industrial  workers,  another 
factor,  mainly  psychological  in  its  nature,  but  no  less  powerful 
in  its  effect,  has  been  operative  in  the  displacement  of  native 
Americans  and  older  immigrant  employees.  In  all  industries, 
and  in  all  industrial  communities,  a  certain  reproach  has  come  td 
be  associated  with  native  American  or  older  immigrant  workmen 
who  are  engaged  in  the  same  occupations  as  the  southern  and 
eastern  Europeans.     This  feeling  on  the  part  of  the  older  cm- 

50 


ployees  is  mainly  due  to  the  habits  of  life  and  conduct  of  recent 
immigrants,  and  to  dieir  ready  acceptance  of  conditions;  but  i1 
is  also  largely  attributable  to  the  conscious  or  unconscious  an- 
tipathy, often  arising  from  ignorance  or  prejudice,  toward  races 
of  alien  customs,  institutions,  and  manner  of  thought. 

The  same  psychological  effect  was  produced  upon  the  native 
Americans  in  all  branches  of  industrial  enterprise  who  first  came 
into  working  contact  with  the  older  immigrants  from  Greal: 
Britain  and  northern  Europe.  In  the  decade  1840-1850,  when  the 
Irish  immigrant  girls  were  first  employed  in  the  New  England 
cotton  mills,  the  native  women  who  had  previously  been  the 
textile  operatives  protested;  twenty  ^-ears  later  the  Irish  girls, 
after  they  had  become  firmly  fixed  in  the  industry,  rebelled  be- 
cause of  the  employment  of  French-Canadian  girls  in  the  spin- 
ning rooms,  just  as  the  French-Canadian  women  refuse  to  be 
l)rought  into  close  working  relations  with  the  Polish  and  Italian 
women  who  are  entering  the  cotton  mills  at  the  present  time. 
Whatever  may  be  the  cause  of  this  aversion  of  older  employees 
to  working  by  the  side  of  the  newer  arrivals,  the  existence  of  the 
feeling  has  become  one  of  the  most  potent  causes  of  racial  sub- 
stitution in  manufacturing  and  mining  occupations. 

IV 

It  is  obvious  that  the  advent  within  recent  years  of  the  south- 
ern and  eastern  European  into  American  industrial  life  has  been 
a  matter  of  most  serious  consequence  to  the  American  workman, 
and  the  present-day  competition  of  the  same  racial  elements  is 
of  the  greatest  significance  to  the  native-born  and  older  immi- 
grant wage-earners.  The  labor  unions  of  the  original  employees, 
which  should  have  been  among  the  greatest  factors  in  assimilat- 
ing industrially  the  recent  immigrant,  and  in  educating  him  to 
American  standards,  in  some  industries — as  for  example  bitumin- 
ous coal  mining  in  western  Pennsylvania,  or  the  cotton  mills  of 
New  England — have  been  completely  inundated,  and  wholl}'  or 
partially  destroyed  by  the  sudden  and  overwhelming  influx  of 
southern  and  eastern  Europeans.  In  other  industries,  where  the 
competition  of  the  immigrant  of  recent  3Tars  has  not  been  so 
directly  felt,  as  in  the  glass  industry,  where  skilled  workmen  were 
formerly  necessary,  the  labor  organizations  are  being  weakened 
and  undermined  indirectly  in  other  ways. 

Everywhere   improved    machiner}'^   and   mechanical    processes 

51 


are  eliminating  the  clement  of  skill  formerly  required  of  em- 
ployees, and  are  making  it  possible  for  the  unskilled  foreign-born 
workman  to  enter  occupations  which  have  hitherto  been  beyond 
his  qualifications,  because  they  required  previous  training  or  ant 
extended  apprenticeship.  Formerly,  in  order  to  be  a  pick-  or 
hand-miner  a  number  of  years  of  training  was  necessary.  Now 
a  machine  does  the  work  and  unskilled  workmen  attend  it.  By 
means  of  the  automatic  loom  and  ring-spinning-frame  an  un- 
skilled immigrant  from  the  south  or  east  of  Europe  may  now 
become  a  proficient  weaiver  or  spinner  within  a  few  months.  The 
former  highly  skilled  work  of  blowing  glass  bottles,  as  well  as 
window  and  plate  glass,  may  now  be  done  by  machinery  manned 
by  foreign-born  employees  who  have  been  in  the  United  States 
less  than  three  months  and  w'ho,  before  their  employment,  had 
never  seen  a  glass  factory. 

In  all  industries,  the  immigrant  wage-earner,  through  the 
elimination  of  the  requirements  of  skill  and  experience,  is  being 
brought  directly  into  contact  and  working  competition  with  the 
native  American  and  older  British  or  northern  European  wage- 
earner.  Unless  the  latter  can  do  something  to  elevate  the  stand- 
ards oi  the  recent  immigrants,  their  competition  in  the  higher 
occupations  will  be  followed  by  as  serious  results  as  have  already 
attended  their  invasion  of  the  lower  grades  of  the  industrial 
scale. 

Much  has  been  written  in  the  past  decade  relative  to  the 
social  and  political  effects  of  recent  immigration.  The  recent 
exhaustive  investigation  of  the  Federal  Commission,  however, 
has  revealed  the  fact  that  these  phases  of  the  problem  are  com- 
paratively of  little  import.  The  actual  problem  is  found  in  the 
industrial  effects  of  the  recent  alien  influx.  Existing  legislation 
cannot  settle  this  problem.  Its  solution  is  dependent  upon  a 
change  in  our  present  immigration  policy. 


WHY  IMMIGRATION  SHOULD  BE 
RESTRICTED ' 

There  is  one  further  step  which  is  an  absolutel}^  essential  part 
of  the  Americanization  campaign.  The  problem  is  difficult 
enough,  at  best,  to  require  all  the  energy,  and  time,  and  money 
that  can  be  given  to  it.     But  no  thorough  Americanization  can 

1  By  Robert  de  C.  Ward.  In  Review  of  Reviews.  59:512-16.  May, 
1919. 


52 


possibly  be  accomplished  unless  the  numbers  of  incoming  alien 
immigrants  are  kept  within  reasonable  limits.  It  is  an  absolutely 
impossible  task  properly  to  (i)  _educatej_  (2)  assimilate,  (3) 
Americanize  and  (4)  naturalize  our  foreign-born  population  if 
millions  forever  keep  poring  in.  It  is  exactly  like  tr^dng  to  keep 
a  leaking  boat  bailed  out  without  stopping  the  leak.  To  expect 
any  reasonable  success  in  this  campaign,  immigration  must  be  re- 
stricted. 

The  balance  of  expert  opinion  on  the  question  of  our  prob- 
able immigration  in  the  years  immediately  ahead  is  that,  as  soon 
as  ocean  transportation  is  again  fully  established,  there  will  be  a 
far  larger  immigration  than  ever  before.  It  is  the  opinion  of 
American  diplomatic  and  consular  officers  in  Europe,  and  of 
competent  correspondents  who  have  recently  traveled  extensively 
abroad,  that  there  is  everywhere  a  more  widespread  desire  than 
ever  to  "go  to  America."  All  the  arguments  which  may  be  urged 
in  favor  of  a  decreased  immigration,  based  on  the  need  of  labor 
for  reconstruction  and  for  agriculture  abroad,  collapse  when  we 
remember  that  the  great  magnet  of  "America"  will  continue  to 
draw  immigrants  to  this  "promised  land."  Our  part  in  feeding 
and  caring  for  vast  numbers  of  people  abroad,  and  in  helping  to 
win  the  war  as  liberators  of  the  oppressed,  and  as  ready  to  sacri- 
fice, if  necessary,  any  number  of  lives  and  endless  sums  of  money 
for  an  ideal,  will  prove  new  incentives. 

Immigration  is  essentially  a  matter  of  economic  conditions 
here  and  abroad.  As  the  late  Gen.  Francis  A.  Walker  so  well 
put  it,  "the  stream  of  immigration  will  flow  on  as  long  as  there 
is  any  difference  in  economic  level  between  the  United  States  and 
the  most  degraded  communities  abroad."  A  recent  writer  after 
considerable  study  of  the  subject,  has  put  the  probable  annual 
number  of  immigrants  who  will  soon  be  coming  here  at  2,000,000. 
Be  that  as  it  maj',  the  most  enthusiastic  believer  in  the  success  of 
the  Americanization  movement  can  hardly  face  the  prospect  of 
a  stead\^  annual  immigration  of  even  only  several  hundred  thous- 
ands without  doubt  and  discouragement.  To  hope  to  accomplish 
successful  Americanization  v.-hen  the  supply  of  aliens  keeps  up  is 
to  have  an  optimism  "beyond  all  bounds  of  reason."  A  real  re- 
striction of  immigration  is  a  necessary  and  a  logical  part  of  the 
Americanization  program. 

Temporary  Decrease  Due  to  the  War. 

The  effect  of  the  war  in  temporarily  diminishing  the  volume 
of  immigration  to  the  United  States  was,  of  course,   expected. 

53 


From  an  annual  innnigralion  ol  ncarl\-  a  million  and  a  hall" 
during  the  hscai  years  1913  and  1914,  and  an  annual  net  increase 
in  alien  population  (i.e.,  deducting  the  numbers  of  those  who  re- 
turned to  their  own  countries)  of  800,000,  the  number  of  immi- 
grant aliens  fell  to  a  little  over  325,000  during  the  year  ending 
June  30,  1915.  In  the  fiscal  3'ears  1916  and  191 7,  about  300,000 
came,  while  in  the  year  ending  June  30  last  the  number  of  immi- 
grant aliens  was  only  110,000. 

While  110,000  is  a  very  small  immigration  as  compared  with 
the  very  much  larger  numbers  in  the  years  preceding  the  war,  it 
is  worth  noting  that  these  alien  immigrants  arrived  at  the  rate 
of  more  than  2,000  a  week  and  nearly  10,000  a  month. 

From  July  to  November,  1918,  the  number  of  immigrant  aliens 
was  45,909,  and  of  non-immigrant  aliens  30,456.  How  all  these 
immigrants  have  managed  to  get  here  during  wartime  is  a  mys- 
tery-. Obstacles  innumerable  have  been  in  their  way,  yet  they 
have  kept  coming.  That  they  have  done  so,  in  spite  of  the  dif- 
ficulties, shows  what  is  likely  to  happen  on  a  vastly  greater  scale 
in  tho  next  few  years,  w'hen  transportation  by  rail  and  steamship 
is  once  more  fully  restored. 

It  has  always  been  held  by  those  who  are  concerned  regarding 
the  admission  into  the  United  States  of  mentall}^  and  physically 
defective  aliens  that,  with  a  smaller  number  of  alien  arrivals, 
the  work  of  inspection  can  be  more  effecti\ely  done,  \\ith  the 
inevitable  and  greatly  to  be  desired  result  that  fewer  undesirables 
will  escape  detection.  Our  experience  during  the  v^ar  has  borne 
out  this  view.  The  increase  in  the  percentage  of  rejections  dur- 
ing the  past  four  years  is  to  be  ascribed,  according  to  the  Com- 
missioner-General of  Immigration,  to  two  causes :  first,  a  deteri- 
oration in  the  quality  of  immigration  itself ;  and  second,  to  more 
rigid  inspection  made  possible  by  decreased  numbers. 

In  the  earlier  days  of  the  war  there  was  a  large  emigration 
from  the  United  States  of  men  belonging  to  the  various  belliger- 
ent countries  who  went  home  to  fight.  The  majority  of  these 
will  naturally  come  back.  As  soon  as  transportation  conditions 
become  more  normal,  there  will  be  a  further  considerable  exodus 
from  the  United  States  of  both  men  and  women  belonging  to 
the  nations  which  have  been  at  war.  These  recent  immigrants 
will  go  home  to  ascertain  the  fate  of  their  relatives  and  friends ; 
to  see  what  has  become  of  their  famih-  property,  and  to  bring- 
back  with  them  to  this  country  as  many  as  possible  of  their 
families  and  friends  still  left  abroad. 


54 


Proposed  Measures  of  Restriction 

The  almost  certain  prospect  of  a  greatly  increased  immigra- 
lion  closely  ioilovving  the  ending  of  the  war;  the  manifest  in- 
justice of  exposing  our  returning  soldiers  and  sailors  to  com- 
petition \\i\h  the  low-priced  labor  of  Europe  and  of  \\  estern 
Asia,  and  the  conviction  that  our  present  immigration  law  is 
selective  rather  than  numerically  restrictive,  have  naturally  re- 
sulted in  a  widespread  demand  for  immediate  further  legislation 
\vhich  shall  really  limit  the  numbers  of  our  alien  immigrants. 
During  the  Short  Session  of  the  Congress  which  ended  on 
March  4,  1919,  the  Immigration  Committee  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  reported  a  bill  (H.  R.  15302,  Union  Calendar  Xo. 
359;  Report  No.  1015),  suspending  immigration  for  four  years, 
with  many  exceptions  in  the  cases  of  certain  professional  classes ; 
the  riear  relatives  of  aliens  now  in,  or  who  have  become  citizens 
of  the  United  States;  aliens  from  Canada,  Newfoundland,  Cuba 
and  Mexico;  aliens  who  are  refugees  because  of  various  kinds 
of  persecution,  and  aliens  admitted  temporaril}-  under  regulations 
to-be  prescribed.    No  action  was  taken  on  this  bill. 

At  the  hearings  which  vvcre  given  by  the  House  Committee 
on  Immigration,  the  bill  was  strong!}-  advocated  by  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor  and  by  other  organizations  which  stand  for 
the  maintenance  of  American  wages  and  of  American  standards 
of  living,  and  which,  especially  in  view  of  demobilization  and  of 
the  dangers  of  unemployment,  wish  to  prevent,  at  least  tem- 
porarily, the  influx  of  large  numbers  of  alien  workers. 

The  line-up  of  the  opponents  of  the  bill  was  the  same  as  in 
previous  years.  The  old  argument  was  used  that  there  is  already 
enough  restriction,  and  it  was  urged  that  there  should  be  more 
hearings,  and  further  delay.  Organizations  from  Vshose  sym- 
pathies the  hyphen  has  by  no  means  been  eliminated,  and  "inter- 
ests" directly  or  indirectly  concerned  with  cheap  labor  and  with 
transportation,  were  represented  among  those  who  spoke  against 
the  pending  measure.  One  of  the  opponents,  representing  certain 
labor  bodies  composed  of  recent  immigrants,  maintained  that  the 
more  immigrants  and  the  more  other  labor  we  have  in  this  coun- 
try, the  higher  will  be  the  wages  of  the  workers,  and  the  higher 
will  be  the  general  standard  of  living! 

Another  bill,  which  was  not  reported  (H.  R.  11280),  based  on 
the  conviction  that  one  of  the  best  tests  of  assimilation  is  the 
wish  to  become  naturalized,  limits  the  number  of  aliens  to  be  ad- 

55 


niittcd  from  any  country  in  any  year  to  from  20  to  50  per  cent, 
of  tlie  persons  born  in  such  country  who  were  naturaUzed  at  the 
date  of  the  last  census.  The  exact  per  cent,  is  to  be  fixed  an- 
nually by  the  Secretary  of  I^abor,  with  reference  to  existing  labor 
conditions  in  the  United  States.  The  percentage  plan  has  the 
merits  of  being  more  than  a  temporary  "reconstruction"  meas- 
ure, and  of  being  sufficiently  elastic  to  respond  to  varying  eco- 
nomic conditions. 

That  a  further  real  restriction  of  immigration  is  necessary 
for  the  best  interests  of  American  labor,  and  for  the  proper  as- 
similation and  Americanization  of  our  heterogeneous  population, 
has  long  been  obvious  to  the  large  majority  of  those,  both  Amer- 
icans and  foreigners,  who  have  impartially  studied  our  immigra- 
tion problems. 


IMMIGRATION  STANDARDS  AFTER  THE  WAR  ' 

One  of  the  knottiest  problems  which  will  have  to  be  faced 
in  the  establishment  of  a  world  state  or  a  league  of  nations  will 
be  the  question  of  the  movement  of  people.  Under  the  national 
economy  which  has  prevailed  hitherto,  every  state  has  assumed 
its  own  right  to  d(^termine  what  should  be  the  constituents  of 
its  population  so  far  as  extrinsic  contributions  were  concerned — 
in  other  words,  the  right  to  control  immigration — and  few  states, 
with  the  exception  of  Japan,  have  questioned  the  legal  or  moral 
right  of  other  states  to  make  such  a  determination.  On  the 
other  hand,  few  modern  states  have  found  it  expedient  to  place 
limitations  upon  the  movements  of  their  own  people  within 
their  own  territor3^ 

Whether  the  era  of  internationalism  which  is  now  dawning 
results  in  the  formation  of  a  world  state,  or  in  a  more  loosly 
coordinated  league  or  federation  of  self-determining  units,  in 
either  case  there  can  be  only  two  general  alternatives  as  re- 
gards migrations.  Either  there  will  be  a  free  right  of  passage 
over  the  entire  territory  included  in  the  state  domain,  analogous 
to  the  present  right  of  travel  within  a  given  country,  or  else 
restrictions  must  be  placed  by  the  central  authority,  or  by  the 
federated  states  in  accordance  with  a  common  agreement  and 
consent,    with    respect    to    boundaries    broadly    similar    to    those 

1  By    Henry    Pratt    Fairchild.      Annals    of   the   American    Academy,      81: 
73-9.     January,    1919. 


56 


which  now  separate  existing  nations.  In  the  former  case,  there 
would  be  introduced  the  new  principle  of  discrimination  withiii 
a  given  jurisdiction;  in  the  latter,  the  way  would  be  left  open 
to  uncreditable  bitterness,  jealousy  and  dissension.  Either  so- 
lution is  full  of  uncertainties  and  dangers. 

It  is  the  purpose  of  this  paper  to  show  that,  great  as  are  the 
dihiculties  of  migration  control  under  a  world  government,  for 
the  present  the  scientific  and  only  safe  course  is  to  insist  upon 
restrictions  (so  far  as  the  United  States,  at  least,  is  con- 
cerned) at  least  as  rigorous  as  those  which  w^ere  in  operation 
before  the  outbreak  of  the  war.  The  demonstration  of  such 
a  proposition  calls  for  a  matter-of-fact,  impersonal  analysis 
which  seems  at  first  to  ignore  the  claims  of  humanitarianism 
and  universal  brotherhood,  and  yet  is  as  fully  legitimate  as  if 
the  subject  under  discussion  were  the  transplantation  of  fruit 
trees,  or  the  control  of  river  currents. 

The  ultimate  goal  of  the  present  convulsion,  the  military 
phases  of  which  have  happily  terminated,  and  the  political  and 
social  phases  of  which  have  just  begun,  is  the  estabhshment  of 
universal  democracy.  Democracy  is  composed  of  various  ele- 
ments, and  is  difficult  of  definition  or  description.  But  of  its 
material  elements  there  is  no  better  embodiment  and  criterion 
than  the  standard  of  living  of  the  common  people.  Where  the 
standard  of  living  of  the  people  is  high,  relative  to  the  general 
producing  power  of  the  territory,  there  democracy  flourishes, 
by  W'hatever  name  the  government  may  be  called.  W  here  the 
masses  live  on  a  low  plane  of  comfort,  democracy  languishes  and 
dies,  however  great  may  be  the  tabulated  wealth  of  that  nation. 
Speaking  of  the  world  at  large,  if  a  higher  standard  does  not 
result  for  the  great  bulk  of  mankind,  all  this  blood  will  have 
been  shed  largely  in  vain.  If  there  should  result  a  general 
lowering  of  the  standard  over  the  entire  globe  it  would  be  an 
unspeakable  calamity,  dwarfing  all  the  untold  horrors  and  losses 
of  the  conflict  itself. 

For  the  remainder  of  this  discussion,  let  us  lay  to  one  side 
all  question  of  the  inferiority  and  superiority  of  racial  stocks, 
and  think  only  of  the  tangible  values  of  material  comfort  and 
spiritual  welfare,  about  which  there  can  hardly  be  a  difference 
of  opinion.  What  is  the  obligation  of  the  United  States  with 
reference  to  maintaining,  and  if  possible  raising,  the  standard 
of  living  of  the  great  masses  of  mankind,  of  whatever  race  or 
affiliation  ? 


57 


The  naive  answer  to  this  question  might  easily  lie  that  our 
duty  is  to  share  our  blessings  as  liberally  and  impartialh'  as 
may  be  with  all  those  who  care  to  participate  in  them,  all  the 
more  so,  since  our  losses  in  defense  of  democracy  have  been 
so  trivial  in  comparison  with  those  of  our  gallant  Allies  w!io 
have  borne  the  burden  of  the  conflict.  If  there  were,  before 
the  war,  hosts  of  conscientious,  intelligent  people  who  were 
ready  to  throw  our  doors  wide  open  to  "the  down-trodden  and 
oppressed  of  every  land,''  there  will  be  more  now  who  will  con- 
ceive it  as  the  acme  of  national  selfishness  if  wc  refuse  as.vlum 
to  the  would-be  refugees  who  will  seek  to  escape  the  drudgery 
and  hardships  of  the  reconstruction  period  in  Europe. 

Let  us  set  down  certain  basic  considerations  bearing  upon 
the  question,  with  reference  to  which  there  will  be  general 
agreement  and  which  will  clarify  the  more  dubious  steps  of  the 
argument.  In  the  first  place,  there  is  little  doubt  that  before 
the  war  the  people  of  the  United  States  enjoyed  a  higher  stan- 
dard of  living  than  any  otlier  considerable  nation.  This  was 
ours,  not  because  of  any  special  merit  of  our  own,  imt  because 
of  the  peculiarly  fortunate  conjunction  of  land,  climate  and 
historical  development  which  has  given  us  an  unparallelled  com- 
mand over  the  sources  of  wealth.  Our  standard  is  rather  in 
the  nature  of  a  free  gift  than  an  achievement.  In  the  secon.d 
place,  it  will  hardly  be  denied  that  if  the  spirit  of  universal 
brotherhood  is  to  dominate  the  world,  those  of  us  who  have 
been  fortunate  enough  to  have  our  lot  cast  in  this  bountiful  land 
must  not  seek  to  monopolize  these  blessings  entirely  for  our- 
selves, just  because  we  happen  to  be  nov,  in  possession  of  them, 
or  because  the  nation  of  which  wc  arc  the  constituent  parts  has 
"owned"  them  for  a  century  and  a  half.  Surely  the  modern 
thing  the  altruistic  thing,  the  post-magnum-bellum  thing  to  do 
is  to  share  these  benefits  as  unreservedly  as  possible,  particularly 
with  those  suffering  peoples  vrith  whom  we  have  been  so  closely 
associated  during  a  year  and  a  half  of  war.  The  crucial  ques- 
tion is  whether  or  not  we  can  best  share  them  by  allowing  the 
individual  representatives  of  those  and  other  peoples  free  ac- 
cess to  the  land  from  which  we  draw  our  wealth  and  power. 

No  space  need  be  devoted  to  a  portrayal  of  the  dire  con- 
ditions which  w^ould  result  if  large  contingents  of  foreign  labor 
should  be  admitted  to  this  country  within  two  or  three  }ears 
from  the  present  date.  It  is  painfull\-  obvious  that  we  shall 
have  all  that  we  can  do  to  handle  the  problems  of  demobiliza- 

58 


lion  of  our  own  army,  and  readjustment  ot  our  industrial  situa- 
tion, without  serious  injury  to  our  standards  of  wages  and  work- 
ing conditions.  Such  an  immigration  as  was  normal  during  a 
busy  year  before  the  war  would  now  be  an  intolerably  compli- 
cating factor.  Probably  this  wdll  be  prevented  W'ithout  any  di- 
rect action  by  the  use  of  shipping  for  other  purposes,  and  other 
contributory  forces.  But  if  it  should  transpire  that  the  cur- 
rent of  immigration  labor  began  to  flow  once  more  while  our 
army  was  still  being  demobilize'd,  such  a  .current  should  cer- 
tainly be  checked  by  effective  means,  however  drastic.  The 
larger  problem,  however,  has  to  do  with  the  effects  which  may 
be  expected  to  follow'  the  resumption  of  immigration  when  peace 
conditions  are  measurably  restored. 

Modern  immigration,  as  is  recognized  by  all  authorities,  is 
large!}'  an  economic  phenomenon,  that  is,  it  represents  a  search 
for  a  higher  standard  of  living.  Almost  without  exception,  the 
countries  which  furnish  large  bodies  of  immigrants  to  the 
United  States  have  a  standard  lower  than  ours,  or  at  least  the 
classes  which  emigrate  have  a  lower  standard  than  similar  classes 
in  this  country.  More  than  that,  our  general  standard  is  so 
much  higher  than  that  of  most  foreign  countries  that  our  lowest 
economic  classes  have  a  standard  above  that  of  much  higher 
classes  in  other  lands.  Immigration,  therefore,  represents  the  intro- 
duction of  lower  standards  into  a  country  of  higher  standards. 

The  immigration  of  foreign  labor  to  the  United  States  tends 
to  low^er  the  standard  of  living  of  our  working  classes.  It 
numerically  increases  the  supply  of  workers  bidding  for  employ- 
ment and  therefore  tends  to  lower  the  prevailing  wage  or  at  best 
prevent  it  from  rising.  This  is  a  sufficiently  serious  influence, 
but  if  the  immigrants  were  habituated  to  the  same  standard  as 
the  natives,  so  that  the  effect  was  exclusively  numerical,  the  result 
would  not  be  necessarily  calamitous,  especially  in  times  of  ex- 
panding industry  when  immigrants  come  most  freely.  Immi- 
gration, however,  has  an  influence  much  more  powerful  and  much 
much  more  disastrous,  that  is  directly  connected  wdth  the  stand- 
ard of  living  itself. 

The  introduction  of  a  relatively  small  contingent  of  foreign 
labor  into  an  industrial  country  may  have  a  depressing  effect 
upon  the  standard  of  living  of  the  working  people  in  that  coun- 
try out  of  all  proportion  to  the  numbers  involved,  provided  that 
the  immigrants  are  accustomed  to  a  definitely  lower  standard 
than  the  natives.    The  process  may  be  schematically  described  as 

59 


follows:  Suppose  that  there  is  in  the  United  States  an  indus- 
trial town  centering  about  one  great  plant  which  is  the  economic 
backbone  of  the  communit}'.  Suppose  that  this  plant  employs 
lO.ooo  people,  the  bulk  of  the  wage-earners  of  the  town.  These 
workers  are  reasonabl}-  efficient,  and  receive  wages  sufficient  to 
enable  them  to  maintain  their  families  in  a  fair  degree  of  com- 
fort. Say  that  the  average  daily  wage  runs  about  $3.00.  Into 
this  town  there  comes  some  morning  a  group  of  500  raw  immi- 
grants in  charge  of  a  labor  importer.  These  foreigners  are  men 
not  materialh"  inferior  in  economic  productiveness  to  the  natives 
of  the  town.  But  they  have  previously  lived  in  a  country  where 
tne  conditions  of  existence  are  so  much  inferior  that  their  cus- 
tomary wage  is  the  equivalent  of  onh-  $1.50  of  American  money. 
To  receive  a  wage  of  $2.00  a  day  would  therefore  enable  them  10 
raise  their  standard  very  decidedly,  and  the}'  will  snatch  at  the 
chance  to  work  for  such  a  wage.  Immediately  upon  their 
arrival,  the  labor  agent  goes  to  the  superintendent  of  the  plant 
and  offers  him  500  laborers  at  $2.00  apiece.  The  superintendent 
looks  them  over,  becomes  convinced  that  they  can  do  the  work 
approximately  as  well  as  his  present  workers  and  agrees  to  take 
them  on.  He  then  calls  in  his  foremen,  and  together  they  select 
the  500  least  efiicient  of  the  $3.00  men,  who  are  thereupon  in- 
formed that  they  are  to  be  discharged.  Upon  learning  the  reason, 
they  protest  that  they  have  their  homes  and  families  in  the  town, 
they  do  not  know  where  else  to  find  employment,  and  rather  than 
lose  their  jobs  altogether  they  accept  the  wage  offered  to  the 
foreigners.  With  a  show  of  generosity,  the  superintendent  offers 
to  pay  them  $2.25  a  day,  and  they  go  back  to  their  places.  In  the 
meantime  the  group  of  foreigners  are  still  available.  Therefore 
the  next  most  inefficient  group  of  500  employes  is  selected,  and 
the  process  repeated,  with  the  same  result.  So  it  goes  on,  until 
eventually  every  one  of  the  10,000  original  workers  has  had  his 
pay  reduced  by  fifty  or  seventy-five  cents.  At  the  same  time,  not 
one  of  the  immigrants  has  been  employed,  and  in  the  evening 
the  group  departs  to  try  its  luck  elsewhere. 

It  goes  w^ithout  saying  that  in  the  complicated  life  of  the 
nation  at  large  the  process  does  not  go  on  so  simply  and  mechani- 
cally as  this.  But  exactly  this  principle  is  at  work,  however 
much  its  operation  may  be  masked  by  contributory  forces.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  competition  of  laborers  habituated  to 
a  lower  standard  is  the  most  pernicious  and  insidious  force 
which   can   attack  the   standard  of   living  of  the   workers   of   a 

60 


modern  industrial  democrac\-.  It  has  been  well  stated  that  there 
is  a  Gresham's  law  in  the  industrial  world,  whereby  the  poorer 
labor  drives  out  the  better,  and  the  lower  standard  eliminates 
the  higher. 

There  can  be  no  question  that  free  immigration  of  foreign 
labor  thoroughly  undermines  the  standards  of  our  common 
people.  The  process  was  already  beginning  to  tell  disastrously 
before  the  war,  and  would  be  immeasurably  augmented  if  im- 
migration should  again  go  on  unchecked,  now  that  there  will 
be  so  much  added  incentive  for  the  tax-burdened  natives  of 
European  countries  to  seek  this  land. 

The  worst  of  the  whole  matter  is  that  there  is  no  limit  to 
the  process.  The  drawing  off  of  a  sufficient  number  ot  laborers 
from  such  countries  as  India  and  China  to  destro}"^  our  own  stan- 
dard would  produce  no  appreciable  benefit  in  those  countries, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  it  would  not  reduce  the  pressure  of 
population  there,  and  therefore  could  not  raise  their  standard. 
A  million  immigrants  a  year  perpetually  could  easily  be  drawn 
from  China  without  decreasing  its  population  in  the  least.  The 
logical  outcome  of  free  immigration  of  workingmen  under 
modern  conditions  of  competitive  bargaining  for  labor,  as  Gen- 
eral Walker  pointed  out  long  ago,  is  the  reduction  of  the  stan- 
dard of  living  of  all  countries  to  one  dead  level,  and  that  the 
level  of  the  originally  most  degraded  and  backward  of  them  all. 

It  needs  no  argument  to  show  that  the  United  States  is 
not  called  upon  to  sacrifice  her  standard  for  the  sake  of  mere 
unreasoning  sentimentality.  She  would  be  most  recreant  to  her 
trust  if  she  did  so.  Standards  of  living  once  lost  can  hardly 
be  regained.  It  is  our  duty  as  a  nation,  our  duty  to  humanity 
in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word,  to  protect  our  standard,  in 
order  that  it  may  serve  as  a  model  and  goal  for  the  striving 
democracies  in  other  lands,  and  that  we  ourselves  ma}'  be  in  a 
position  to  help  those  democracies  to  climb  somewhere  near  to 
the  plane  of  their  ideals. 

The  question  of  immigration  after  the  war  is  often  stated 
as  the  problem  of  whether  we  need  to  protect  ourselves  againr.t 
the  dumping  of  cripples  and  incompetents  from  foreign  sources. 
The  real  question  is,  how  we  may  protect  ourselves  from  the 
able-bodied  workers  of  less  fortunate  lands.  Paradoxical  as 
it  may  seem,  we  haA'^e  much  less  to  fear  from  the  man  who  can- 
not earn  his  living  than  from  the  man  who  can.  This  is 
a    rich    country,    and    we    could    well    afford    to    support    for 

6i 


the  rest  of  their  lives  thousands  of  the  physical  wrecks  of  war 
from  England,  France,  Belgium,  Italy,  Greece,  Russia  and  Serbia. 
It  would  be  but  a  slight  recognition  of  our  debt  to  those  countries 
who  have  paid  so  much  dearer  for  the  liberty  of  the  world  than 
we  have  if  our  military  hospitals  and  cantonments  were  gradually 
transformed  into  homes  for  as  many  disabled  victims  as  our 
Allies  chose  to  send  us  (under  proper  government  supervision  to 
prevent  abuse),  while  we  taxed  ourselves  liberally  for  their  life- 
long support  and  comfort.  This  would  cost  us  nothing  but 
money.  But  to  permit  the  free  transference  of  the  labor  from 
those  countries  to  this  under  conditions  which  meant  the  disrup- 
tion of  our  own  standards  would  cost  us  our  very  life,  and  worst 
of  all,  would  cost  us  our  abilit}'  to  be  of  real  and  permanent 
help  to  less  fortunate  lands. 

The  foregoing  discussion  rests  upon  the  assumption  that  in 
general  the  present  economic  system  will  prevail,— private  owner- 
ship of  capital,  competitive  wage-bargaining,  individual  responsi- 
bility for  family  living  conditions,  etc.  What  might  happen 
under  conditions  of  socialism,  or  a  world-wide  minimum  wage 
is  merely  matter  for  conjecture — except  that  it  is  hard  to  conceive 
of  any  minimum  wage  which  would  not  speedily  break  down 
under  conditions  of  free  immigration. 


LABOR   AND    IMMIGRATION' 

I  believe  that  a  carefully  restrictive  control  of  immigration  is 
absolutely  necessary  to  the  establishment  of  the  kind  of  indus- 
trial order  already  suggested.  Not  because  there  is  no  room  or 
fruitful  work  in  America  for  all  the  myriads  who  annually  (in 
normal  times)  pass  through  its  gates.  The  vast  resources  of 
this  continent  could  sustain,  given  scientific  cultivation  of  the 
land,  and  an  economic  distribution  of  the  people,  we  know  not 
how  many  times  its  present  population.  And  not  because  the 
newcomers,  from  Europe  at  any  rate,  cannot  be  assimilated  into 
American  life  and  raised — where  raising  is  in  question — to  Amer- 
ican standards.  The  response  to  the  American  environment  of 
the  children  of  the  foreign  born,  even  of  those  whom  we  re- 
missly suffer  to  be  insulated  in  racial  colonies,  is  a  most  remark- 
able phenomenon.     But  the  true  reason  for  restrictive  control  is 

*  From   "Labor  in  the  Changing  World,"  by   R.   M.   Maclver.     p.    192-4. 
Copyrighted  by  E.  P.   Button  &  Co.,    1919. 

62 


an  economic  one.  The  Report  of  the  Immigration  Commission 
provides  much  evidence  to  show  that  the  low-skilled  occupations 
into  which  the  mass  of  immigrants  enter  are  considerably  over- 
stocked. Too  cheap  labor  is,  like  all  cheap  things,  very  expensive 
in  the  long  run.  Our  society  as  a  whole,  as  well  as  those  directly 
concerned,  suffers  on  account  of  the  low  standards,  the  over- 
crowding and  the  infection,  the  disorganization  and  the  exploita- 
tion, which  are  the  other  side  of  too  cheap  labor.  These  evils 
cannot  be  avoided  so  long  as  unskilled  myriads  are  allowed  to 
flood  the  labor  market.  No  standards  can  be  maintained,  no 
order  can  be  built  up  in  face  of  the  competition  of  the  immigrant- 
recruited  reserves  of  unemployed.  This  indisputable  fact  is  the 
true  ground  for  restriction. 


PROPOSED  IMMIGRATION  LEGISLATION  ' 

It  has  been  urged  against  this  legislation  that  there  will  be  no 
emigration  from  the  war-stricken  countries  for  several  years  on 
account  of  the  need  of  workers  there.  If  that  be  true,  this  bill 
can  certainly  do  no  harm. 

But  is  it  true? 

Let  that  question  be  answered  as  to  one  country  at  least  by  a 
high  Italian  official.  A  few  weeks  ago  a  delegation  from  the 
Italian  labor  union  came  to  this  country  from  Italy.  At  the  head 
of  this  delegation  was  Mr.  Alceste  De  Ambris,  a  member  of  the 
Italian  House  of  Deputies.  In  the  December  number  of  Italy 
To-day,  a  publication  gotten  out  in  New  York  by  the  Italian 
Bureau  of  Public  Information  in  the  United  States,  Mr  De  Am- 
bris is  quoted  on  page  50,  as  follows : 

"Emigration  of  Italian  labor  after  the  war  will  be  a  necessity, 
and  part  of  the  function  of  the  delegation  is  to  help  this  emigra- 
tion. Italy  has  an  excess  of  300,000  births  over  deaths  annually, 
and  these  300,000  must  find  an  outlet.  Industry  in  Italy  has  ad- 
vanced and  is  making  ever-increased  demands  on  labor,  but  the 
increase  is  not  equal  to  the  supply.  Italy  has  an  excess  of  labor 
and  it  would  benefit  both  the  United  States  and  Italy  if  this  labor 
could  be  induced  or  would  choose  to  come  here." 

On  page  51  he  says : 

"Although  industry  in  Italy  is  entering  a  new  era  of  ag- 
grandizement, this  development  can  not  3'et  absorb  Italy's  huge 

*  U.   S.  Immigration  Service  Bulletin.      1:9-12.     February   i,    1919. 

63 


labor  reserve.  Emigration  must  take  care  of  that;  those  who 
remain  in  Italy  will  have  work  at  good  wages,  and  bolshevism 
will  go  unheeded." 

Mr.  De  Ambris  w^as  solicitous  about  preventing  bolshevism 
in  Italy,  but  he  was  not  worried  about  the  bolshevism  likely  to 
be  produced  here  by  having  two  men   for  every  job. 

What  is  said  about  the  surplus  in  Italy  may  be  said  with 
equal  force,  and  even  greater  force,  as  to  some  other  countries. 

The  year  before  the  war  in  Europe  began  1,218,480  immi- 
grants came  to  this  country. 

Those  were  mainly  from  the  countries  of  southern  and  eastern 
Europe.  During  the  war  scarcely  any  came.  If  the  war  had  not 
been  on,  the  emigration  from  those  countries  during  the  past 
four  and  a  half  years,  at  the  rate  it  had  been  making  for  the 
previous  four  years,  would  have  been  somewhat  more  than  their 
loss  by  death  in  the  war.  Hence  the  depletion  by  death  in  the 
war  leaves  those  countries  about  where  they  would  have  been 
left  by  emigration.    Thus  they  will  start  anew. 

Conditions  in  Russia  will  naturally  cause  many  people  from 
that  country  to  seek  homes  elsewhere.  If  the  Bolshevists  are 
suppressed,  they  will  be  the  ones  who  will  come  here  to  join 
their  brethren,  both  foreign  and  native,  in  flaunting  the  red  flag 
and  teaching  death  to  individuals  and  destruction  to  property. 

Major  LaGuardia  in  his  testimony  before  the  committee  pre- 
dicted a  large  immigration  of  Greeks,  Syrians,  and  so  on. 

Capt.  Johnson,  Member  of  Congress  from  South  Dakota,  who 
had  a  most  honorable  career  at  the  front  in  France  and  had  the 
opportunity  to  investigate  at  first  hand,  predicted  before  the 
committee  that  large  numbers  of  the  worst  classes  will  as  soon 
as  possible  make  a   rush   for  America. 

How  soon  will  that  be?  Just  as  soon  as  the  steamship  com- 
panies can  begin  their  transportation. 

A  more  arrogant  lot  of  outlaws  never  entered  our  ports  than 
some  of  those  steamship  companies. 

In  proof  of  that  fact  it  need  only  be  stated  that  although  only 
a  little  over  100,000  aliens  came  to  this  country  during  the  last 
fiscal  year,  and  many  of  them  came  across  the  Mexican  border, 
yet  fines  to  the  amount  of  $63,315  were  levied  on  the  steamship 
companies  for  flagrant  violations  of  our  immigration  laws. 

Again,  it  is  urged  that  many  aliens  now  here  will  return  to 
their  countries  as  soon  as  they  can  secure  transportation.  That 
is  no  doubt  true ;  but  nearly  everyone  of  them  will  go  back  with 
the  expectation  of  soon  returning  to  this  country  and  bringing 
some  of  his  relatives  with  him. 

64 


This  was  admitted  by  one  of  the  fairest  and  most  intelligent 
witnesses  that  appeared  before  our  committee  against  this  bill. 
There  were  two  cogent  reasons  which  impelled  the  committee  to 
favor  this  legislation.  One  is  the  unsettled  labor  conditions  that 
are  already  beginning  here,  and  that  will  no  doubt  grow  worse  as 
the  soldiers  from  our  armies  are  discharged  and  war  workers 
are  released. 

Although  less  than  one-fifth  of  our  soldiers  have  been  dis- 
charged, we  are  already  hearing  of  the  surplus  of  labor  increas- 
ing in  almost  every  section  of  the  country. 

A  few  weeks  ago  the  Division  of  Employment  Service  of  the 
Department  of  Labor  reported  a  surplus  in  only  a  few  States. 
Each  day's  report  adds  to  that  surplus,  until  to-day  a  majority 
of  the  States  report  such  surplus. 

In  some  cities  riots  are  occurring  from  unemployment,  and  in 
a  few  cases  unemployed  discharged  soldiers  are  engaging  in  those 
riots. 

At  Pittsburgh  the  employers  of  unorganized  labor  are  cutting 
wages.    Most  of  their  employees  are  foreigners. 

The  workingman  is  barely  making  a  support  at  present  wages 
with  the  high  cost  of  living  prevailing.  Then,  how  can  he  be 
expected  to  submit  to  a  reduction  of  wages  while  the  cost  of 
what  he  has  to  buy  to  feed  and  clothe  his  family  is  so  high,  and 
in  many  cases  going  higher  ? 

Then  will  it  not  be  a  tragedy  if  we  allow  thousands  of  aliens 
to  come  to  our  shores  to  work  for  low  wages  and  thereby  secure 
the  jobs  that  ought  to  go  to  the  returning  American  soldiers  and 
the  war  workers?  The  American  Federation  of  Labor  and  the 
four  brotherhoods  of  railroad  workers  are  unanimously  for  this 
bill. 

The  writer  of  this  report  has  heard  from  some  large  employ- 
ers of  labor  who  favor  this  legislation  because  they  fear  the  con- 
fusion and  irritation  that  will  result  from  permitting  a  large  in- 
flux of  foreigners,  many  of  whom  bring  the  red  flag  in  one  hand 
and  the  bomb  in  the  other. 

Another  reason  that  influenced  the  committee  is  the  danger 
to  political,  moral,  and  material  conditions  in  this  country  gen- 
erally by  the  admission  of  thousands  of  revolutionists  and  Bol- 
shevists from  foreign  countries.  War  has  intensified  the  spirit  of 
lawlessness  all  over  Europe  and  it  will  take  years  to  eradicate  it. 

Conditions  here  may  be  composed  and  return  to  normal  in 
two  years  if  we  are  left  alone,  but  in  other  countries  it  will  take 
lour  or  six  or  ten  years  to  bring  about  that  change,  and  certainly 

65 


during  that  period  we  ought  to  protect  our  own  from  European 
conditions. 

It  is  impossible  to  keep  our  revolutionists  and  Bolshevists 
without  keeping  out  substantially  everybody.  We  have  had  a  law 
excluding  anarchists  for  years,  and  yet  the  war  developed  the 
fact  that  we  had  thousands  of  them  in  our  midst.  The  far-famed 
melting  pot  has  proven  to  a  great  degree  a  delusion  and  a  snare. 
We  feel  that  it  is  now  time  that  we  were  beginning  to  look  after 
those  of  our  own  household,  rather  than  to  open  our  ports  to 
many  who  know  nothing  of  our  laws,  our  customs,  our  standards 
of  living,  and  never  intend  to  learn  of  them. 

We  have  by  our  liberal  immigration  laws  taken  many  who 
have  proven  that  their  hearts  and  their  sympathies  were  not  with 
us,  and  they  were  ready  to  strike  their  poison  fangs  into  the 
bosom  that  warmed  them. 

Now,  let  us  try  for  at  least  four  years  to  close  ranks  and  try 
to  see  "Who's  who  in  America." 


ALIENS  LEAVING  OUR  SHORES  IN  LARGE 

NUMBERS ' 

The  situation  has  led  a  writer  in  the  New  York  Times  to 
point  to  one  element  in  the  situation  "which  is  perhaps  the  most 
important  of  all,  but  it  receives  little  or  no  consideration."  This 
is  the  problem,  "What  would  have  happened  if,  during  the 
century  and  a  half  of  our  national  life,  we  had  received  no  im- 
migration?" The  writer  points  to  a  school  of  economists  who 
have  reasoned  from  a  "biological  axiom"  that  as  the  rate  of  in- 
crease in  population  is  determined  solely  by  the  supply  of  fertile 
land  and  food,  therefore  the  twenty  millions  who  have  come  to 
our  shores  "have  prevented  the  birth  of  twenty  millions  of 
native-born  Americans."  Along  this  line  the  Times  writer  pro- 
ceeds to  say: 

"In  Colonial  American  families  the  birth-rate  had  been  small 
before  leaving  Great  Britain,  but  increased  amazingly  on  Amer- 
ican soil,  all  during  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries.  In 
1751,  when  our  population  was  about  one  million,  Benjamin 
Franklin  said  that  the  immigrants  who  had  produced  this  number 
were  generally  believed  to  have  numbered  less  than  eight}'  thous- 
and— a  gain  of  over  twelve-fold  in  little  more  than  a  century.  In 
some  parts  of  the  Colonies  the  people,  without  the  aid  of  immi- 

1^  Literary    Digest.      62:96-}-.     July    26,     1919- 

66 


.^ration,  doubled  in  twenty-five  years,  and  there  were  localities  in 
which  they  doubled  in  less  than  twenty  years.  Up  to  1820,  the 
entire  population  of  New  England  and  of  the  regions  settled 
from  New  England  came  from  immigrants  who  numbered  not 
over  twenty  thousand.  These  mainly  arrived  between  1620  and 
1640,  the  immigration  from  1640  to  1820  being  virtually  nil.  Many 
writers,  including  Sydney  G.  Fisher,  Edward  Jarvis,  and  Gen. 
Francis  W'alker,  have  said  that  the  subsequent  checking  in  native 
growth  came  as  a  result  of  the  great  wave  of  immigration  which 
began  in  1820.  If  it  had  not  been  for  this,  they  sa}^  our  total 
population,  exclusivel}-  derived  from  the  elder  stock,  would  now 
be  as  great  as,  or  even  greater  than,  it  is. 

"This  would  have  meant,  of  course,  that  our  railways  would 
have  been  built  and  our  factories  manned  by  American  laborers. 
A  doubt  is  permissible,  in  spite  of  the  'biological  axiom,'  whether 
they  would  have  been  forth-coming  in  sufficient  numbers  to 
accomplish  the  result  we  have  to-day.  A  rise  in  the  standards  of 
living,  to  sa}'  nothing  of  increasing  luxury,  such  as  became  in- 
evitable Vv'ith  the  development  of  the  continent,  would  probably 
have  acted  as  a  check  on  the  birth-rate.  But  the  slowing  down 
of  our  development  might  not  have  been  an  unmixed  calamity. 
W^hat  we  lost  in  the  sum  total  of  wealth  we  should  probal)ly 
hare  gained  in  a  more  equitable  distribution  of  what  we  had — 
fewer  swollen  fortunes  and  less  poverty. 

"One  result  of  recruiting  our  population  from  foreign  peoples 
has  been  peculiarly  unfortunate.  For  an  English-speaking  Amer- 
ican to  accept  certain  forms  of  hand-labor  is  to  fall  quite  out  of 
his  natural  sphere.  Any  form  of  brain-work,  however  humble  or 
ill-paid,  appears  to  be  preferable.  We  have  thus  vast  numbers 
of  rniddle-class  Americans  living  on  salaries  actually  less  than 
the  wages  of  foreign  hand-laborers.  And  among  these  middle- 
class  people  the  birth-rate  is  alarmingly  small.  Above  all,  the 
unregulated  influx  of  foreigners,  ignorant  of  our  ways,  has 
brought  a  loss  in  the  vigor  and  integrity  of  our  native  institu- 
tions. Bolshevism  and  socialism  also  very  largely  are  the  prod- 
uct of  the  people  who  have  been  welcomed  by  captains  of  indus- 
try intent  on  immediate  material  results. 

"Our  lofty  sentiments  and  our  materialism  are  alike  wounded 
by  the  proposal  to  limit  immigration  by  means  of  selective  tests. 
But  if  the  result  is  to  convince  our  middle-class  respectables  of 
the  dignity  and  worth  of  hand-labor  and  at  the  same  time  to 
guard  the  integrity  of  our  free  institutions,  there  will  be  a  com- 
pensation," 

67 


1 


NEGATIVE  DISCUSSION 

IMMIGRATION  AND  INTERNATIONALISM ' 

When  the  Sixty-fifth  Congress  adjourned,  on  March  4,  there 
was  pending  in  that  body  a  bill  prohibiting  immigration  into  the 
United  States  for  four  years.  That  bill,  in  consequence  of  the 
adjournment,  is  dead,  but  there  is  every  reason  for  anticipating 
that  an  identical  bill,  or  one  with  substantially  equivalent  pro- 
visions, will  be  introduced  in  the  Senate  or  House  when  the  new 
Congress  convenes.  When  the  proposal  reappears,  however,  its 
supporters  and  opponents  will  have  to  take  account  of  an  argu- 
ment which,  while  clearly  enough  foreshadowed  at  the  time  when 
the  former  measure  was  under  consideration,  was  not  sufficiently 
developed  to  make  it  a  determining  factor  in  the  discussion.  That 
argument  is  internationalism.  It  makes  little  difference  whether 
or  not  President  Wilson  succeeds  in  carr}ang  the  country  with 
him  in  support  of  the  resolution  of  the  Peace  Conference,  or 
whether  the  plan  of  a  League  of  Nations  to  which  the  Senate 
will  be  asked  to  give  its  approval  is  the  original  scheme  pro- 
mulgated by  the  Peace  Conference  or  a  modified  draft  such  as 
the  newspapers  are  busily  discussing.  What  has  been  set  going 
in  the  world  is  the  idea  of  international  organization,  interna- 
tional action  for  the  furtherance  of  world  happiness,  and  inter- 
national comity ;  and  it  is  in  the  Hght  of  this  overshadowing  idea 
that  the  question  of  immigration  must  eventuall}^  be  judged. 

Nothing  will  be  gained,  when  the  question  again  comes  up, 
by  reciting  the  familiar  arguments  for  or  against  the  restriction 
of  immigration.  If  we  leave  out  of  the  account  the  insane,  the 
feeble-minded,  the  physically  helpless,  and  those  convicted  of 
non-political  offences — classes  which  each  nation  may  properly 
be  asked  to  care  for  for  itself — the  arguments  in  favor  of  re- 
striction rest  ultimately  upon  one  or  other  of  two  grounds.  The 
first  is  the  assumption  that  everj^  nation  has  the  right,  in  the 

^Nation.      108:540.      April    12,    1919. 

69 


nature  of  things,  to  determine  who  shall  or  shall  not  enter  or 
reside  in  its  territory,  and  to  keep  the  opportunities  of  its  eco- 
nomic or  social  life  to  itself.  The  second  is  the  assumption  that 
the  nations  of  the  world  are  not  equal,  that  some  peoples  are  a 
"menace"  to  others,  and  that  differences  of  race  are  an  insur- 
mountable harrier  to  economic  assimilation  or  social  equality. 
The  first  of  these  assumptions  is  at  the  bottom  of  every  restric- 
toin  of  immigration  which  professes  to  protect  American  labor 
from  foreign  competition ;  the  latter  underlies  every  contemptu- 
ous reference  to  "foreigners"  as  of  another  and  lower  breed, 
every  worked-up  cry  of  alarm  at  the  "menace"  of  "low-grade" 
labor  from  abroad,  every  restriction  upon  the  entrance  of 
Chinese  or  Japanese  or  upon  their  life  while  here. 

It  will  be  interesting  to  see  how  those  who  have  been  eagerly 
proclaiming  their  acceptance  of  Mr.  Wilson's  doctrines  of  democ- 
racy and  human  brotherhood,  and  who  now  appear  to  be  at  least 
as  anxious  that  the  world  shall  have  a  League  of  Nations  as  they 
are  that  it  shall  have  a  just  and  durable  peace,  will  treat  the 
subject  of  immigration  w-hen  the  question  is  once  more  before 
Congress  and  the  country.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  neither  of  the 
assumptions  just  referred  to  squares  with  internationalism.  We 
have  objected  to  the  Paris  plan  of  a  League  of  Nations  because, 
among  other  things,  it  provides  for  a  league  of  Governments  and 
not  for  a  league  of  peoples;  because  it  has  been  framed  in  secret 
by  a  self-constituted  group  of  titular  heads  of  four  great  Powers, 
without  consultation  with  the  representatives  of  other  Govern- 
ments, neutral  or  belligerent,  and  without  mandate  even  from 
iheir  own  people;  because  the  Governments  whose  spokesmen 
have  framed  the  League  will  dominate  it ;  and  because  the 
special  claims  of  right  or  privilege  which  in  the  past  have  either 
helped  to  set  nations  against  one  another  or  have  negatived  the 
idea  of  national  equality  are,  apparently,  to  be  respected  and  con- 
tinued. This  is  no  true  internationalism,  but  only  a  novel  scheme 
of  inter-Allied  nationalism;  and  from  such  ingenious  devices 
for  keeping  up  appearances  the  awakened  peoples  of  the  world 
have  now  turned  away. 

The  bearing  of  this  upon  the  particular  question  of  immigra- 
tion is  clear.  If  Congress  has  comprehended  the  new  interna- 
tional spirit  which  now  everywhere  pervades,  and  is  genuinely  in 
sympathy  with  it,  it  will  have  done  with  putting  up  the  bars. 
Even  the  game  of  politics  must,  in  the  long  run,  be  played  fairly 

70 


if  politics  itself  is  not  to  be  hopelessly  discredited.  The  very 
idea  of  internationalism,  and  hence  of  every  proper  scheme  of  a 
League  of  Nations,  implies  the  right  of  the  citizens  of  every 
member  of  the  League  to  unrestricted  admission  to  the  territory 
of  every  other  member,  and  to  equal  freedom  of  residence  or 
occupation  therein;  so  only  that  they  obey  the  law  of  the  juris- 
diction in  which  they  happen  to  be,  and  contribute  by  physical  or 
intellectual  labor  to  the  welfare  of  the  community.  Anything 
less  than  this  belongs  to  the  narrow  and  selfish  nationalism  which 
the  world  has  outgrown. 

The  same  is  true  with  the  assumption  of  inequality.  Just  as 
there  can  be  no  lasting  federation  of  nations  if  the  few  that  are 
strong  are  to  dominate  the  many  that  are  weak,  so  there  can  be 
no  true  internationalism  if  the  right  of  free  migration  is  to  be 
denied  or  seriously  curtailed.  Of  all  the  mockeries  which  have 
h-ndered  ilie  growth  of  a  genuine  international  spirit  in  this 
country,  those  of  "lower  standards"  and  the  "menace  of  cheap 
labor"  have  been  among  the  worst.  If  all  the  descendants  of 
foreigners  who  came  to  the  United  States  in  poverty,  and  who 
gladly  took  the  first  job  they  could  find  at  any  wages  the  em- 
ployer would  pay,  were  to  be  disfranchised,  some  exceptionally 
prominent  American  families  would  lose  their  voting  privilege. 
To  possess  superior  advantages  and  deny  to  others  the  oppor- 
tunit}^  of  sharing  in  them ;  to  hold  in  povert}^  ignorance,  and 
suffering,  through  oppressive  conditions  of  employment,  wretched 
housing,  and  poor  schools,  men  and  women  of  foreign  birth 
whose  labor  is  adding  daily  to  our  wealth ;  to  lump  together 
contemptuously  as  "foreigners"  all  whose  native  language  is  not 
English ;  or  to  determine  the  social  worth  of  a  man  by  the  color 
of  his  skin,  is  not  only  snobbish  and  anti-social  in  the  individual, 
but  anti-international  and  socially  destructive  in  the  nation.  Now 
that  most  of  the  nations  of  the  earth  and  their  colonies  have 
been  combining  against  a  common  enemy,  and  those  which  were 
fighting  in  the  heat  of  the  battle  have  gladly  welcomed  help  from 
every  quarter,  it  is  time  to  abandon  the  unctuous  pretence  of  na- 
tional and  racial  superiority.  It  were  better  that  internationalism 
should  be  condemned  as  a  pernicious  heres}^,  and  the  best-con- 
trived plan  of  a  League  of  Nations  rejected  witljout  a  dissenting 
vote,  than  that,  having  espoused  the  one  and  ratified  the  other, 
we  should  insult  the  weakest  member  of  the  new  society  of  na- 
tions by  denying  to  its  people  free  admission  to  our  shores. 

71 


WHAT  RESTRICTION  MEANS ' 

First  of  all,  the  result  of  the  war  on  the  sources  of  American 
population.  These  sources  are  two,  birth  rate  and  immigration. 
Of  the  two,  the  first  is  the  more  weighty ;  but  immigration  has 
been  a  more  considerable  factor  in  the  population  of  the  United 
States  than  with  any  other  country. 

During  the  ten  years  preceding  the  war  we  received  an  aver- 
age of  almost  exactly  a  million  immigrants  a  year.  A  million 
a  year  had  come  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  sort  of  standard  annual 
immigrant  crop,  and  we  counted  on  it  unconsciousl}'  in  all  our 
business  plans  and  forecasts  of  growth  and  expansion.  Unques- 
tionably, from  a  business  point  of  view,  it  was  by  far  the  most 
valuable  of  our  crops.  We  didn't  list  it  as  a  crop  as  we  did  our 
corn  and  cotton  and  wheat  and  our  annual  ore  output.  But  a 
crop  it  was  nevertheless,  and  it  cost  us  nothing.  From  a  business 
and  economic  point  of  view,  omitting  for  the  present  all  social 
consideration,  it  was  a  gift  from  the  gods.  Europe  bore  all  the 
expense  of  bearing  the  immigrant  and  raising  him  to  maturity; 
he  was  delivered  at  our  gates  free  of  charge,  a  full-grown,  able- 
bodied  laborer.  Valuable?  Of  course  he  was.  In  the  South 
before  the  Civil  War  the  less  intelligent  and  far  less  capable 
slave  had  a  market  value  of  about  a  thousand  dollars — the  i860 
kind  of  dollars,  and  a  dollar  of  i860  was  equal  to  about  four  of 
our  present  dollars  of  1919.  Our  annual  immigrant  crop,  in 
terms  of  our  national  wealth,  was  worth  not  less  than  two  billion 
dollars,  and  that  was  twice  the  value  of  any  of  the  other  great 
crops  that  we  boasted  of. 

This  annual  immigrant  crop  the  war  cut  off  from  us.  The 
number  of  immigrants  who  came  to  the  United  States  in  1918 
was  just  about  one-tenth  of  normal;  to  be  exact,  110,618.  (And 
an  undue  proportion  of  these  were  of  the  less  desirable  sort, 
Mexicans,  Japanese,  West  Indians.  Whereas  through  the  war 
our  immigration  from  Europe  practicall}'^  ceased,  from  Mexico 
and  Japan  it  actually  increased.)  This  accumulated  deficit  of 
between  four  and  five  million  laborers  is  probably  the  largest 
single  factor  in  our  present  economic  situation.  Every  business 
man  must  take  account  of  it,  must  take  account  of  it  both  on  the 
side  of  lack  of  labor  for  production  and  on  the  side  of  diminished 
consumption. 

^  By  Mark  Sullivan.  Reprinted  from  Colliers  in  the  Jewish  Immi- 
gration  Bulletin.      9:6-7,   9-10.      June,    1919. 

72 


WTiat  I  have  so  far  said  about  immigration  is  of  the  past. 
The  next  phase  of  the  subject  is  within  the  field  of  conjecture. 
\\  ill  peace  restore  the  flow  of  immigration  into  the  United 
States?  Will  immigration  recommence  at  all,  and  if  it  does  will 
it  come  in  anything  like  the  pre-1914  rate  of  a  million  a  year? 
While  this  question  is  in  the  future,  the  answer  to  it  is  one  of  the 
really  big,  physical  factors  that  are  to  affect  future  business  and 
economic  conditions  in  this  country. 

On  this  question  the  only  evidence  that  has  actually  developed 
so  far  is  a  disturbing  and  rather  mysterious  phenomenon.  Not 
only  has  immigration  from  Europe  to  the  United  States  failed 
to  materialize  since  the  armistice.  That  failure  of  the  emigrants 
to  come  for  the  present  and  during  the  few  months  since  the 
armistice  is  easy  to  explain.  For  one  thing,  there  are  no  ships 
to  bring  them ;  every  corner  of  every  ship  that  can  be  found  is 
crowded  with  American  soldiers.  For  another  thing,  the  Italian 
laborers  who  might  be  expected  to  be  the  first  to  come  are  not 
free  to  leave  Italy;  they  are  still  in  the  army.  The  Italian  Gov- 
ernment has  not  yet  demobilized  its  arm}-.  For  that  there  are 
interesting  reasons.  Partly,  Italy  is  moved  b}^  fear  of  the  social 
disorders  tliat  may  accompany  her  demobilization ;  partly,  Ital)^ 
has  in  some  ways  inherited  the  mantle  of  Germany.  It  is  not 
that,  however,  that  has  any  essential  bearing  on  the  question  of 
future  immigration  into  the  United  States.  The  disturbing 
phenomenon  that  is  already  apparent  is  this :  European  immi- 
grants who  are  already  in  the  United  States  and  have  been  here 
for  some  time  are  now  leaving  us  and  returning  to  Europe.  They 
are  leaving  in  large  numbers.  The  head  of  the  immigration  ser- 
vice of  the  United  States  tells  me  that: 

"The  alien  exodus  up  to  date  is  running  about  18,000  a  month. 
It  is  running  to  ship  capacity.  And  back  of  those  who  can  get 
away  are  many  times  that  number  (there  being  thousands  waiting 
in  New  York)  who  are  planning  to  go  just  as  soon  as  they  can 
secure  passage.  The  exodus  is  confined  to  the  Mediterranean 
because  there  is  very  little  facility  for  persons  to  get  back  to 
central  Europe.  My  own  impression  is  that  the  exodus  is  going 
to  be  tremendously  heavy." 

This  exodus  of  alien  laborers,  at  a  time  when  labor  is  scarce 
and  well-paid,  is  one  of  the  interesting  phenomena  of  the  pres- 
ent. It  ma}^  turn  out  to  be  an  important  one.  I  don't  know  that 
its  significance  can  be  perfectly  explained.  I  have  been  at  some 
pains  to  try  to  discover  the  reasons  for  it,  but  I  am  not  sure  they 

73 


are  clear.  (Our  ingenious  propaganda)  among  the  "wets"  say 
it  is  due  to  Prohibition).  One  element  in  it  is  that  these  aliens 
are  rich.  During  the  past  four  years  they  have  been  earning  ex- 
tremely high  wages,  and  they  have  acquired  what  is  for  them  un- 
dreamed-of wealth.  From  their  point  of  view  they  have  become 
capitalists.  Judged  by  the  standard  of  life  which  they  were  ac- 
customed to  in  Europe,  and  b}'  the  cost  of  living. as  they  remem- 
ber it  in  their  old  homes,  they  think  they  can  retire.  They  do 
not  know  that  in  many  parts  of  Europe  the  cost  of  living  has 
become  higher  than  in  the  United  States.  One  other  factor  that 
influences  them  is  their  hope  to  acquire  some  land.  They  came 
to  America  because  they  couldn't  get  land  in  Europe.  Now  they 
have  heard  that  revolution  has  broken  up  the  old  feudal  estates. 
They  have  heard  that  it  is  now^  possible  for  them  to  get  a  little 
land  in  their  old  homes  and  the}'  are  going  back  to  get  it. 

Whatever  ma}'  be  the  significance  of  this  present  back  flow  of 
immigrants  to  their  old  homes  in  Europe,  it  is  not  necessarily 
final  evidence  on  the  bigger  question  of  future  emigration  from 
Europe  to  the  United  States. 

Shall  We  Destroy   Wealth? 

This  larger  question  of  whether  immigration  from  Europe  to 
the  United  States  will  ever  be  resumed  on  a  large  scale  may  be 
determined  within  a  few  months.  It  is  just  now  to  the  front  in 
Congress,  and  in  Congress  there  is  a  strong  sentiment  toward  for- 
bidding it.  Congress  always  has  a  strong  sentiment  in  this  direc- 
tion. On  several  occasions  in  the  past  severe  anti-immigration 
measures  have  been  passed  by  Congress  only  to  be  vetoed  by  the 
President.  President  Wilson  vetoed  one  and  President  Taft 
vetoed  one.  To  vote  against  immigration  always  fits  in  with  the 
prejudices  of  the  majority  of  congressmen,  and  with  the  pre- 
vailing feeling  of  the  majority  of  congressional  districts  through- 
out the  country.  A  congressman  can  usually  make  a  hit  with 
the  organized  labor  of  his  district  by  opposing  immigration. 
Communities  which  arc  prevailingly  native  American  are  usually 
prejudiced  against  immigration.  The  fact  that  a  few  immigrants 
are  anarchists,  or  othenvise  hold  political  or  religious  beliefs 
repugnant  to  Americans  causes  sweeping  condemnation  of  all 
immigration.  The  conspicuous  recurrence  of  foreign  names  in 
our  present  crusade  against  what  is  called  Bolshevism  tends  to 
make  the  prejudice  against  immigration  even  more  acute  than 
usual. 


74 


But  Congress  ought  to  decide  the  matter  on  a  hasis  of 
broader  statesmanship  than  mere  prejudice  or  panic  because  of  a 
few  crazy  bomb  throwers.  Stated  truly,  the  question  before  Con- 
gress and  the  country  is  this:  Arc  we  equal  to  the  problem  of 
distinguishing  between  desirable  European  immigrants  and  un- 
desirable ones?  Congress  ought  not  to  confess  the  futility 
which  would  answer  "no"  to  that  question,  and  it  and  the  coun- 
try ought  to  understand  the  economic  significance  of  what  they 
4o. 

Russia  or  the  United  States f 

If  Congress,  in  its  impending  decision,  decides  against  immi- 
gration, that  answer  obviously  will  be  final.  If  Congress  does 
not  give  this  kind  of  decision,  then  the  answer  as  to  future  im- 
migration will  arise  out  of  future  conditions  in  Europe.  The 
common  assumption,  and  it  is  a  true  assumption,  is  that  in  prac- 
ticall)'  ever}'  country  in  Europe,  economic  conditions  will  be  such 
that  large  numbers  of  people  will  feel  like  leaving.  The  great 
burden  that  will  press  upon  them,  and  which  they  will  want  to 
escape,  is  taxation.  You  can  beat  the  devil  of  taxation  around 
the  stump  as  devioush'  and  as  energetically  as  you  may,  but  it  will 
still  remain  true  that,  at  the  end  of  the  road,  taxation  comes  out 
of  v/ork.  And  a  superficial  inquiry-  into  the  national  debts  of 
the  countries  of  Europe  makes  you  realize  that  in  the  immediate 
future  the  position  of  a  laborer  in  Europe  will  be  something  like 
this :  he  will  go  to  work  in  the  morning  and  he  will  work  to 
noon ;  by  that  time  he  will  have  earned  enough  to  pay  his  taxes ; 
what  he  earns  during  the  rest  of  the  day  he  can  keep  for  himself. 
Under  these  conditions,  it  would  seem  probable  that  a  laborer 
will  be  disposed  to  take  his  hat  and  move  to  some  other  country. 

However,  this  weight  of  taxation  will  be  neither  so  permanent 
nor  so  severe  as  is  now  commonly  assumed.  Statesmen  can  and 
will  find  ways  of  beating  their  national  debts.  Not  that  any  of 
the  debts  are  likely  to  be  repudiated  outright.  But  statesmen  can, 
and  have,  inflated  the  currency.  If  a  normal  mark  or  franc  or 
lira  is  worth  20  cents,  and  if,  by  one  device  or  another,  you  cut 
it  down  to  10  cents,  then  3-ou  can  pay  your  national  debt  with  half 
the  amount  of  real  wealth.  Moreover,  if  you  lay  an  inheritance 
tax  based  on  50  per  cent  of  a  national  debt,  two  generations  will 
wipe  it  out.  Finally,  if  the  European  countries  cut  out  their 
standing  armies  and  navies,  the  saving  will  go  a  long  way  toward 
paying  the  interest  on  the  public  debt.  It  is  not  taxation  that  will 
give  the  whole  answer  as  to  emigration  from  European  countries. 

75 


The  final  answer,  it  seems  to  me,  lies  in  the  place  where  it  is  most 
possible  to  get  cheap  land.  That  place,  in  the  fairly  early  future, 
is  going  to  be  Russia.  Within  five  years  Russia  will  have  got  a 
good  government.  She  will  have  broken  up  her  old  system  of 
feudal  landholding,  and  will  be  what  our  great  West  was  during 
most  of  the  last  century,  the  country,  of  cheap  land  and  oppor- 
tunity, the  rainbow  end  of  the  emigrant's  hope.  If  there  is  to  be 
emigration  out  of  the  western  countries  of  Europe,  that  emigra- 
tion may  flow,  not  to  the  United  States,  but  to  Russia.  Russia, 
however,  as  a  haven  for  immigrants  from  the  rest  of  Europe 
will  not  be  available  until  that  unhappy  country  has  settled  down 
and  got  a  stable  government.  In  the  meantime,  in  the  immediate 
future,  the  United  States  can,  if  it  chooses,  adopt  and  practice 
policies  which  will  be  very  apt  to  attract  European  immigrants 
here  in  large  numbers. 

Wanted:   Millions  of  Workers 

The  United  States  is  now  in  such  a  position  of  financial  and 
economic  dominance  that  we  can  do  about  what  we  please  with 
respect  to  the  rest  of  the  world.  That  is  to  say,  we  can  do  what 
we  please  if  we  go  about  it  thoughtfully,  with  business  and  states- 
manship working  hand  in  hand.  On  the  one  hand  we  can  lend 
money  and  sell  raw  materials  freely  to  Europe,  and  let  the  labor- 
ers stay  over  there  and  make  goods,  and  we  can  keep  our  tariflfs 
low  so  that  the  goods  they  make  can  come  in  here  for  sale.  On 
the  other  hand,  we  can  keep  our  money  at  home  and  make  our 
tariff  high,  so  that  European  labor  will  be  led  to  come  over  here 
and  work  for  us  here  at  home.  Which  of  the  two  policies  is  to 
prevail  will  be  developed  by  time.  In  any  event,  w'hether  we  are 
to  have  immigration  on  a  large  scale  is  an  important  factor  in 
our  economic  future.  For  a  generation  we  have  relied  upon  the 
immigrant  to  build  our  roads,  to  mine  our  coal,  to  dig  our  ore, 
to  man  our  factories,  to  provide  our  domestic  servants.  If  we 
don't  get  them,  then  most  assuredly  we  shall  have  to  get  along 
without  a  good  deal  of  the  work  they  did  for  us,  without  a  good 
deal  of  the  comfort  and  convenience  we  have  been  accustomed 
to. 

The  result  of  our  present  deficit  of  what  we  call  common 
labor  is  one  of  the  most  apparent  aspects  of  our  daily  life.  It  is 
apparent  in  the  scarcity  of  what  we  call  domestic  servants.  It  is 
apparent  in  the  defective  upkeep  of  our  railroads,  and  even  more 
so  in  the  condition  of  our  public  roads.  There  is  no  physical 
need  in  this  country  just  now  so  great  as  good  roads.    Hundreds 

76 


of  thousands  of  miles  of  road  which  are  now  merely  trails 
through  the  mud  ought  to  be  made  into  permanent  highways 
adapted  to  automobile  traffic  in  any  kind  of  weather  conditions. 

And  what  I  have  said  of  roads  applies  in  the  same  degree  to 
that  large  group  of  operations  which  we  call  "public  works." 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  activity  throughout  America  just  now. 
But  what  we  are  busy  about,  for  the  most  part,  is  perishable 
goods,  goods  for  immediate  consumption.  We  are  not,  and  for 
five  years  have  not  been,  paying  enough  attention^  or  indeed  any 
measurable  attention,  to  making  additions  to  the  permanent  ma- 
terial basis  on  which  our  civilization  rests. 

We  have  not  been  building  any  new  railroads,  nor  have  we 
even  been  giving  adequate  upkeep  to  the  railroads  we  have.  The 
erection  of  buildings  has  been  interdicted  by  the  Government; 
we  have  not  been  building  hospitals,  schools,  and  the  like.  We 
cannot  resume  this  kind  of  building,  in  the  accustomed  degree, 
without  a  large  access  of  human  hands.  America  in  the  near 
future  could  make  profitable  use  of  millions  of  workers,  to  build 
roads  and  bridges,  to  repair  the  railroads,  to  drain  swamps,  to 
build  levees  on  the  Mississippi,  to  reclaim  land  by  irrigation. 
The  degree  in  which  we  can  take  up  that  kind  of  permanent  im- 
provement will  be  limited  by  the  available  quantity  of  human 
beings  to  do  the  work. 

Cheap  Food:    More  Babies 

There  would  be  no  need  for  emphasis  on  this  aspect  of  the 
economic  and  business  future  of  the  country  if  one  could  hope 
that  the  loss  which  we  shall  suffer  through  the  cutting  off  of  im- 
migration would  be  likely  to  be  offset  by  our  native  birth  rate. 
But  birth  rate  is  a  process  which  consumes  at  least  twenty  years 
in  producing  an  addition  to  our  labor  supply.  Aloreover,  it  is 
pretty  certain  that  the  native  birth  rate  in  the  United  States  in 
the  near  future  will  be  even  lower  than  before.  For  one  thing, 
it  is  the  recent  immigrants  who  have  had  the  large  families,  and 
for  five  years  immigration  has  been  practically  shut  off.  Further- 
more, in  the  United  States  as  well  as  in  all  Caucasian  countries, 
the  natural  laws  which  govern  birth  rate  will  be  working  ad- 
versely. What  those  laws  are  cannot  be  stated  with  scientific 
accuracy,  but  we  can  take,  as  at  least  having  the  authorit}^  of  an 
accepted  treatise,  the  following  from  Buckle's  "History  of  Civ- 
ilization" : 

"The  number  of  marriages  annually  contracted  is  determined, 
not  by  the  temper  and  wishes  of  individuals,  but  by  large  general 

77 


facts  over  which  individuals  can  exercise  no  antliorit}'.  It  is 
now  known  that  marriages  bear  a  fixed  and  definite  relation  to 
the  price  of  corn.  (By  "corn"  Buckle  means  what  Americans 
call  wheat.)  In  England  the  experience  of  a  century  has  proved 
that  instead  of  having  any  connection  with  personal  feelings  they 
are  simply  regulated  by  the  average  earnings  of  the  great  mass  of 
the  people.  So  that  this  immense  social  and  religious  institution 
is  not  onl}'  swayed  but  is  completely  controlled  by  the  price  of 
food  and  by  the  rate  of  wages." 

What  Buckle  is  talking  about,  j'ou  will  recognize,  is  merely 
that  familiar  institution  of  the  present  day,  the  high  cost  of  liv- 
ing. And  if  our  birth  rate  in  America  during  the  immediate 
future  is  going  to  be  determined  by  the  cost  of  living,  the  con- 
clusion is  too  obvious  to  be  stated.  The  chief  business  of 
thoughtful  statesmanship  in  the  United  States  just  now  should 
be  focused  on  measures  to  facilitate  the  production  and  distribu- 
tion of  food  and  make  it  less  costly  to  the  consumer;  measures 
to  change  any  conditions  of  industry  which  operate  as  deterrents 
to  early  marriage ;  measures  which  recognize  that  no  kind  of 
economic  function,  no  kind  of  work  that  a  woman  can  do  is  so 
valuable  to  society  as  the  bearing  of  children;  measures  which 
recognize  that  to  the  individual  there  is  no  other  career  and  no 
other  satisfaction  so  durable  or  desirable  as  the  founding  of  a 
family  and  the  rearing  of  children — measures,  in  short,  which 
look  to  more  babies. 


THE  PROPOSAL  TO  SUSPEND  IMMIGRATION ' 

Manufacturers  throughout  the  United  States  believe  that  the 
Burnett  Bill,  now  pending  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  to 
prohibit  immigration  from  any  but  contiguous  lands  for  a  period 
of  four  years,  is  neither  wise  nor  in  accord  with  the  principles 
of  our  Government.  They  further  believe  such  action  will  ham- 
per the  future  expansion  of  industry  and  agricultural  develop- 
ment in  many  sections.  After  the  present  period  of  uncertainty 
in  business  passes  over,  our  manufacturing  leaders  believe  the 
domestic  supply  of  labor  wall  not  be  adequate  to  meet  our  needs. 

The  bill  is  a  direct  confession  of  our  national  failure  intel- 
ligently to  arrange  for  proper  supervision  and  distribution  of 
arriving   immigrants.      A    much    better    solution    of    the    matter 

^  By  Stephen  C.  Mason,  President  National  Association  of  Manufac- 
turers.    In  American   Industries   for   February,    1919.     p.   7. 


78 


would  be  the  adoption  of  suitably  restrictive  legislation  with  im- 
migrant distribution  machinery  on  the  new  lines  of  Canada. 

We  have  millions  of  acres  of  undeveloped  lands  in  this  coun- 
try to  which  few,  if  any,  of  our  returning  2,000,000  soldiers  will 
emigrate.  Why  refuse  admission  to  those  immigrants  from  agri- 
cultural lands  in  Europe  with  these  lands  of  our  own  still  lying 
in  disuse  and  our  farmers  badly  in  need  of  labor  and  the  country 
in -need  of  increased  farm  products?  Furthermore,  there  are 
^many  industrial  centers  where  the  supply  of  unskilled  labor  is 
far  below  the  demand,  even  now. 

To  shut  off  practically  ever}-  avenue  for  new  labor  forces 
tor  the  next  four  years  is  not  squarely  meeting  an  important 
problem  of  readjustment.  It  is  creating  possibly  more  grievous 
problems  and  conditions  then  those  which  it  is  sought  to  correct. 
We  are  weak,  indeed,  if,  on  the  pretext  of  preventing  the  im- 
portation of  one  of  Europe's  w-ar  aggravated  social  diseases, 
known  as  rampant  Bolshevism,  the  only  remedy  we  can  adopt  is 
to  prohibit  the  continued  arrival  of  those  still  remaining  healthy 
and  vital  forces  of  European  labor  which  may  come  to  our  shores 
to  escape  the  very  social  conditions  in  their  own  land  which  we, 
ourselves,  dread. 

The  Burnett  Bill  is  contrary  to  and  in  conflict  with  the 
avowed  purpose  of  President  Wilson  to  "make  the  world  safe 
for  democracy,"  through  the  medium  of  the  League  of  Nations. 
Furthermore,  it  directly  seeks  to  create  a  prohibitive  labor  tariff 
wall,  so  that  while  our  Government  leaders  are  proclaiming  our 
ideals  of  "Democracy,"  an  autocracy  of  labor  may  quietly  be 
built  up  within  our  domain. 

So  far  as  that  portion  of  our  free  institutions  and  form  of 
government  might  apply  to  the  immigrant,  the  Burnett  Bill 
might  logically  contain  the  following  clause  as  to  purpose :  "to 
extinquish  the  light  in  the  hand  of  the  Goddess  of  Libert}'  at  the 
entrance  to  Xew  York  harbor  for  four  years." 


HUAL\N  CURRENTS  OF  THE  AA\\R ' 

Congress  proposes  to  prohibit  immigration  during  a  period  of 
four  years  after  the  signing  of  peace.  Is  a  blanket  measure  of 
this  character  what  we  want  and  what  we  need?  Yes — if  we 
can   noAV   dispense  with    Europe's   contribution    to   our  material 

^  By  Herbert  Adams   Gibbons.      In    Everybody's  for  July,    19  iq.      p.   48- 
53- 

79 


development.  No — ^if  increase  of  population  by  immigration  is 
still  helpful  to  us.  It  is  an  error  to  think  that  prohibition  for  a 
limited  time  will  save  us  from  undesirable  elements.  After  four 
years,  the  best  and  most  energetic  of  the  new  migratory  current 
will  have  found  its  way  elsewhere.  Would  it  not  be  wiser  to 
permit  immigration,  but  make  our  regulations  more  stringent.-' 

We  have  always  handled  the  problem  of  entry  into  the 
United  States  stupidly  and  illogically,  annoying  to  ourselves  and 
to  the  immigrants.  The  war  has  shown  us  the  way,  and  pro- 
vided us  with  the  means  of  suppressing  the  absurdity  of  whole- 
sale detention  at  Ellis  Island.  As  a  war  measure,  wc  are  de- 
manding a  passport,  with  the  vise  of  an  American  consular  0111- 
cial,  of  every  person  who  proposes  to  put  foot  on  American  soil. 
It  is  possible  to  continue  this  machinery  after  the  war.  We  can 
limit  the  granting  of  vises  to  desirables.  The  applicant's  desir- 
ability can  best  be  determined  by  investigation  on  the  spot  in 
Europe. 

The  Parliaments  of  Great  Britain  and  the  British  Dominions 
are  as  keenly  alive  as  we  are  to  the  necessity  of  being  ready  for 
a  strong  migrator}^  current  from  continental  Europe.  London 
has  gone  farther  than  \\'ashington,  and  seems  inclined  to  follow 
a  path  that  will  lead  to  tremendous  consequences  for  Europe.  It 
is  proposed  at  Westminster  to  forbid  enemy  aliens  to  enter 
British  territory  for  an  indefinite  period  and  to  deport  Germans, 
Austrians  and  Hungarians  who  are  settled  in  the  British  Empire. 
If  this  proposal  is  carried  out,  other  nations,  notably  Brazil,  may 
follow  the  precedent  set  by  the  British.  Deportation  of  Germans 
from  British  territory  w^ould  create  a  forced  migratory  current 
as  great  as  that  which  is  already  flowing  out  of  Alsace-Lorraine 
and  Prussian  Poland.  It  is  unlikely  that  the  ousted  Germans 
will  find  it  possible  to  settle  in  their  country  of  origin.  \\'here 
will  they  go,  and  in  what  direction  will  the  migratory  current 
from  Germany  flow?  Will  public  sentiment  in  America  bar  Ger- 
mans and  influence  Central  and  South  American  countries  to 
adopt  the  same  policy?  Upon  the  answer  to  these  questions  de- 
pends, in  a  very  large  measure,  the  influence  of  the  war  of  1914- 
1918  upon  twentieth-century  Europe.  Nothing  is  more  certain 
than  that  we  can  not  bottle  up,  under  adverse  economic  condi- 
tions, the  eighty  million  Germans  of  Central  Europe  in  a  German 
state  narrowed  down  to  its  ethnographical  limits.  Even  if  we 
gave  back  to  Germany  her  colonies,  they  would  not  support  a 
large  white  population.    Do  we  not  have  to  choose,  then,  between 

80 


sharing  with  the  German  race  the  development  of  Africa,  the  two 
Americas  and  Australia,  and  seeing  the  Germans  overflow  into 
Eastern  Europe  and  Asia? 

In  December,  1914,  in  the  office  of  a  great  electrical  manu- 
facturing concern  of  Berlin,  I  was  interviewing  one  of  the  chief 
promoters  in  Germany  of  reapproachment  with  Great  Britain.  I 
had  come  to  get  his  version  of  the  causes  of  the  war.  "Why  is 
Germany  fighting?"  he  cried,  jumping  up  from  his  desk.  "I  can 
put  it  in  one  sentence.  We  were  nervous  to  the  breaking-point 
over  the  Westward  Ho !  preparation  of  the  Slavs."  In  expand- 
ing his  thesis,  the  German  explained  the  war  by  migratory  cur- 
rents. Russia  was  pressing  Germany,  so  Germany  had  to  press 
France  and  Belgium.  Great  Britain  was  afraid  she  would  be 
pressed  in  turn.  I  suppose  that  if  I  had  met  this  manufacturer- 
philosopher  again  after  we  had  entered  the  war,  he  would  have 
explained  our  intervention  in  the  same  way !  Some  Americans 
did.     Were  not  we  to  be  attacked  next? 

Would  it  be  a  strange  ending  for  a  war  caused  by  German 
fear  of  a  Slav  migrator}''  current  westward,  to  have  a  German 
migratory  current  eastward  ?  Not  at  all !  The  greatest  wars  in 
Europe  were  due  to  migratory  currents  from  the  east  and  north 
seeking  a  way  out  to  the  Atlantic  and  Mediterranean.  We  read 
that  "civilization"  was  saved  every  time  by  the  races  of  the  west 
and  south  stemming  the  migratory  current.  The  French  claim 
today  that  they  must  go  back  to  the  Rhine,  as  they  have  done  in 
the  past,  in  order  to  prevent  a  renewal  of  German  aggression. 
But  the  Eastern  menace  is  relative.  The  Germans  have  gone 
eastward  to  stem  the  Slav  tide.  And  at  the  time  of  her  war 
with  Japan  did  not  Russia  try  to  gain  the  sympathies  of  the  world 
by  claiming  that  her  presence  in  Vladivostok  and  Port  Arthur 
was  essential  to  save  Europe  from  the  yellow  peril? 

"The  world  is  not  changed,"  says  the  pessimist  with  a  sigh. 
"History  repeats  itself.  Human  nature  is  always  the  same." 
Platitudes !  What  is  being  said  over  and  over  again  in  Paris 
salons  is,  I  am  told,  being  said  just  as  often  on  the  other  side  of 
the  Atlantic.  Let  us  put  over  against  them  the  words  of  Phillips 
Brooks,  as  much  gospel  truth  to-day  as  when  they  were  spoken 
a  generation  ago  from  a  Boston  pulpit.  In  the  backward  and  for- 
ward movement  of  migratory  currents  in  Europe,  racial  elements 
have  been  steadily  absorbed  or  united  to  form  increasingly  larger 
political  organisms.  In  the  overflow  to  extra-European  countries, 
new  nations  have  been  created.     Racial  antagonism  and  intense 

81 


nationalism  are  the  aftermath  of  wars  only  to  superficial  observ- 
ers who  can  not  sec  farther  than  the  end  of  their  noses,  only  to 
opportunist  statesmen  who  mistake  passing  SA'mptoms  for  per- 
manent conditions. 

A  mother  once  said  to  me :  "I  have  come  to  dread  the  day 
my  babies  learn  to  walk."  "Why?"  I  asked.  "Because  they  can 
go  a"s^y  from  me,"  she  said.  The  status  quo  is  a  comfortable 
condition.  But  it  exists  in  infancy  and  decrepitude.  Between 
the  beginning  and  the  end  of  life,  there  is  the  rhigratory  instinct. 
W  hen  this  world  of  ours  hears  the  trumpet  of  the  Angel  Gabriel, 
and  not  until  then,  shall  we  be  in  a  position  to  no  longer  reckon 
with  evolution. 


NATIONAL    LIBERAL    LMMIGRATJOX 

LEAGUE ' 

Resolutions  adopted  at  the  Annual  Convention  of  the  National 
Association   of  Manufacturers  May   19-21,    1919 

Whereas  it  was  proposed  by  the  Committee  on  Immigration 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  65th  Congress  to  sub- 
stantially prohibit  immigration  to  the  United  States  for  a  period 
of  3^ears  and  such  proposal  is  likely  to  bfe  renewed  in  the  same 
terms,  and 

Whereas  the  information  is  not  now  available  upon  which  to 
fairly  determine  whether  the  United  States  is  likeh-  to  suffer  an 
outflow  or  inflow  from  its  population,  but  circumstantial  evidence 
at  hand  strongl}-  indicates  the  former  is  likely  to  occur  and  that 
a  variety  of  causes  ma}'^  induce  a  severe  drain  amongst  many  ele- 
ments of  our  foreign  born  population, 

Therefore  be  it  resolved  that  the  National  Association  of 
Manufacturers  in  Convention  assembled  declares  its  belief  that 
public  interest  requires  that  the  Congress  should  consider  the 
formulation  of  a  just  and  socially  sound  immigration  policy 
which,  without  denying  admission  to  those  whose  presence  is 
politically  and  economically  desirable,  will  reject  the  diseased, 
the  criminal,  those  likely  to  become  dependent,  or  who  by  ex- 
pressed belief  or  racial  or  national  predisposition,  are  unlikeh'  to 
be,  or  incapable  of  becoming  qualified  for  citizenship;  that  any 
person,  foreign  or  native  born,  who  advocates  or  teaches  the 
overthrow  of  this  form  of  government  b}'  force  or  physical  re- 

82 


sistance  to  its  lawful  authority  should  upon  accusation  and  con- 
viction upon  such  charge,  forfeit  his  citizenship,  or  if  an  alien,  be 
deported  to  the  country  whence  he  came,  and  subject  to  such 
restrictions  the  United  States  invites  to  its  shores,  as  ever,  the 
strong,  the  honest,  the  clean  in  mind  who  have  faith  in  its  in- 
stitutions, adhere  to  them,  and  who  desire  to  enjoy  the  privilege 
of  its  citizenship. 


"Mr.  President,  it  is  important  to  remember  that  this  stream  of 
immigrants  has  been  flowing  into  America  since  the  early  days 
of  the  seventeenth  century.  Those  who  favor  this  bill  seem  to 
forget  that  only  the  other  day  their  ancestors  were  alien,  the 
sons  of  England,  France,  Ireland,  Italy,  Scotland,  Poland,  Ger- 
many, Russia,  and  other  lands;  and  though  that  stream  of  re- 
vivifying blood  has  ceased  to  flow  into  some  sections  of  our 
country,  it  still  continues  to  renew  the  energies  and  courage  of 
the  North  and  the  West,  as  ever.  Wherever  he  has  gone  schools 
have  sprung  up ;  industries  have  flourished ;  trade  has  increased ; 
wealth  has  multiplied;  prosperity  has  bloomed;  and  patriotism, 
peace,  law,  order,  intelligence  and  happiness  follow  in  his  foot- 
steps." 

— James  A.  Gallivan^  Representative  in  Congress  from 
Massachusetts. 


"Let  the  objectors  to  opening  our  gates  to  able  bodied  immi 
grants  of  good  character  reflect  where  our  country  would  have 
been  except  for  that  invaluable  element." 

Andrew  Carnegie. 


i^- 


83 


/ 


3  0112  061896962 


-qJSk 


\ 


